Professor Mike Hinchey has taken over as President of IFIP, the global professional association for the ICT industry. Professor Hinchey is a Director of Lero, the Irish software research centre, Professor of Software Engineering at the University of Limerick, Ireland and a consultant to NASA’s Space Program.
Professor Hinchey was elected last October during IFIP’s 2015 General Assembly after the World Computer Congress (WCC 2015) in South Korea and has served as President-elect since then. He succeeds Mr Leon Strous, who completed his second consecutive term as President at the 2016 General Assembly held over the weekend, after last week’s World IT Forum (WITFOR) 2016 in Costa Rica.
Professor Hinchey said he intends to build on Mr Strous’s efforts to raise the profile of IFIP and its many achievements by developing closer relationships with other industry bodies, governments and international agencies such as the United Nations.
“As the umbrella society for national ICT professional bodies around the world, IFIP represents the people working in ICT and has access to the knowledge and expertise of over half a million ICT professionals and researchers through our member societies,” he said.
“When it comes to the ICT sector, we really do represent the world. We want to play a larger role by promoting professionalism and ethics in ICT, and by bringing together the right experts who can apply technology to solve some of the challenges we currently face as a society.”
Professor Hinchey pointed to the successful WITFOR 2016 conference held last week in Costa Rica as just one example of how IFIP works to make a positive contribution. WITFOR 2016 brought together ICT professionals and researchers, government ministers, policy makers and other stakeholders to explore ways in which technology can help to progress the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.
Prior to his current professional roles, Professor Hinchey was Director of the Software Engineering Laboratory at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Centre in Maryland, where his work helped make NASA missions self-managing and better able handle challenging terrains. Mike also helped develop significant advances in survivability, reducing the likelihood of mission failure, and continues to consult on various space projects.
Professor Hinchey holds a B.SC in Computer Science from the University of Limerick, an M.Sc in Computation from the University of Oxford and a Ph.D in Computer Science from the University of Cambridge and has engaged in visiting professorships all over the world.
