Plenary Panel: Modern Computing in 80 Years – Where We Came From and Where We Are Going
Wednesday July 8
Part of the Symposium on IEEE Computer Society at 80 and IEEE COMPSAC at 50: Legacies of Computing Innovation, celebrating the 80th Anniversary of the Computer Society and the 50th Anniversary of COMPSAC
Between 1937-1941, Iowa State College Professor of Mathematics and Physics John Vincent Atanasoff invented the first modern electronic digital computer, named Atanasoff-Berry Computer (ABC). In 1946, John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert announced Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer (ENIAC), touted as the first programmable, general purpose electronic digital computer in the world. Later, through a court case, US District Judge Earl Richard Larson ruled in 1973 that “Eckert and Mauchly did not themselves first invent the automatic electronic digital computer, but instead derived that subject matter from one Dr. John Vincent Atanasoff.”
Many of us were not part of the early days of modern computing, and perhaps never heard of the court case between ABC and ENIAC as explained above. The panel organizer, chair and panelists, with representation spanning several “generations”, from various regions in the world, and possessing intimate personal involvement in and knowledge with key milestones of modern computing, will examine what has happened in the past 80 years, speculate what will be forthcoming on the horizon through our wildest imagination, and discern time-defying laws and principles of modern computing. We invite you to join us in this deliberately produced time tunnel to tour the past and move back to the future of modern computing. We also look forward to your sharing of different perspectives and experiences. Collectively, we hope to have a life-fulfilling time together in Madrid, to help celebrate the 80th anniversary of IEEE Computer Society, and to proudly pronounce our exciting venture in modern computing.
Panel Organizers and Participants
Carl K. Chang, 2004 President
IEEE Computer Society
Stephen S. Yau, 1974-75 President
IEEE Computer Society
Jean-Luc Gaudiot, 2017 President
IEEE Computer Society
Hong Mei, 2020-24 President
China Computer Federation
Dejan Milojicic, 2014 President
IEEE Computer Society
Edmundo Tovar, 2021-22 President
IEEE Education Society
Hironori Washizaki, 2024 President
IEEE Computer Society
Bios
Panel Organizer
Carl K. Chang, Iowa State University & National Central University, 2004 President, IEEE Computer Society
Bio: Carl K. Chang is former chair and Professor Emeritus of Computer Science at Iowa State University. He also holds a courtesy appointment as Chair Professor at his alma mater the National Central University, Taiwan. His research interests include requirements engineering, situational analytics, software services engineering and smart aging. Chang is the 2004 President of IEEE Computer Society. Previously he served as the Editor-in-Chief for IEEE Software (1991-94). He has received numerous awards and honors including the Computer Society’s Meritorious Service Award, Outstanding Contribution Award, the Golden Core recognition, and the IEEE Third Millennium Medal. In 2006 he received the prestigious Marin Drinov Medal from the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. He was recognized by IBM with the IBM Faculty Award in 2006, 2007 and 2009. From 2007-2010 he served as the Editor-in-Chief for IEEE Computer, the flagship publication of IEEE Computer Society. He is the 2012 recipient of the Richard E. Merwin Medal from the IEEE Computer Society. More recently, he was elected the 2014 Distinguished Alumnus by the National Central University in Taiwan, and received the 2014 Overseas Outstanding Contribution Award from China Computer Federation. In 2019, Chang became the 8th foreign recipient of the Honorary Member Award endowed by the Information Processing Society of Japan since 1960. As a seasoned conference organizer, he served as the Standing Committee Chair for IEEE COMPSAC from 2006-2015, and the Steering Committee Chair for IEEE World Congress on Services from 2017-2022. As a well-recognized scholar in software engineering, he participated in the inaugural team that developed the Guide to the Software Engineering Body of Knowledge (SWEBOK). Chang spearheaded the joint task force on Computing Curricula 2001 (CC2001) for education renovation, an effort of the IEEE Computer Society (IEEE-CS) and the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), that has made a major impact on undergraduate computing education worldwide. Chang is a Life Fellow of IEEE, a Fellow of AAAS, and a Life Fellow of the European Academy of Sciences.
Panel Chair
Stephen S. Yau, 1974-75 President, IEEE Computer Society
Bio:
Stephen S. Yau is Professor of Computer Science and Engineering, School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence at Arizona State University (ASU). He served as the chair of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering in 1994 – 2001, and later as the director of the Information Assurance Center at ASU. Previously, he was on the faculties of Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, and University of Florida, Gainesville. He served as the president of the IEEE Computer Society, the editor-in-chief of IEEE COMPUTER magazine and was on the Boards of Directors of the IEEE and Computing Research Association. He served as the chair of the 1974 national computer conference sponsored by American Federation of Information Processing Societies, ACM, IEEE-Computer society and Simulation council. He served as the chair of the 1st IEEE COMPSAC in 1977 and later as the chair of the steering committee of COMPSAC. He served as the president of American Federation of Information Processing Societies (AFIPS), and the chair of the Organizing Committee of the World Computer Congress in 1989 sponsored by the International Federation for Information Processing. His current research interests include services and cloud computing, cybersecurity, software engineering, IoT and applications of blockchain and artificial intelligence. He received many awards and recognitions, including the 1st Richard E. Merwin Award-1981 and the Tsutomu Kanai Award-2002 of the IEEE Computer Society, and Overseas Outstanding Contributions Award of the Chinese Computer Federation-2006. He is a Fellow of the IEEE, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and Asia-Pacific Artificial Intelligence Association (AAIA). He received the BS degree from National Taiwan University, the MS and PhD. degrees from the University of Illinois, Urbana, all in electrical engineering.
Panelist
Jean-Luc Gaudiot, University of California – Irvine, 2017 President, IEEE Computer Society
Bio: Jean-Luc Gaudiot is Distinguished Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of California, Irvine (UCI). He earned a Diplôme d’Ingénieur from the École Supérieure d’Ingénieurs en Électronique et Électrotechnique (Paris, France) in 1976 and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of California, Los Angeles.
Prior to joining UCI in January 2002, he was a Professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of Southern California. As Chair of the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at UCI, he led a period of significant growth, including the recruitment of twelve new faculty members, resulting in a substantial rise in national rankings. Earlier in his career, he held research and development positions at Teledyne Controls (1979–1980) and the TRW Technology Research Center (1980–1982).
He is the recipient of the 2026 Richard E. Merwin Award for Distinguished Service.
Indeed, he has provided extensive service to the IEEE and the IEEE Computer Society. Recently, he co-chaired the 2025 International Symposium on Computer Architecture, which achieved record participation of more than 1,200 attendees. He served as President of the IEEE Computer Society in 2017, leading the Society through a period of fundamental organizational reforms that strengthened its financial position and strategic engagement with emerging technologies. At the IEEE level, he chaired the TAB Ad Hoc Committee on the Multiple Society Discount Program (2021–2022), promoting inter-society collaboration by instituting incentives for participation in multiple societies and OUs. He co-founded Computer Architecture Letters and the IEEE Parallel Architectures and Compilation Techniques Conference.
Professor Gaudiot’s research interests include the programmability of parallel systems, hardware-based computer security, and autonomous driving systems. He has authored nearly 300 refereed journal and conference publications. His research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy, DARPA, and numerous industrial sponsors.
He was elected an IEEE Fellow in 1999 and an AAAS Fellow in 2007.
Panelist
Hong Mei, Peking University, 2020-24 President, China Computer Federation
Bio: Mei Hong is a professor at Peking University and the director of Key Laboratory of High Confidence Software Technologies of Ministry of Education (MOE) at Peking University. He serves as President of the China Computer Federation (2020-2024), formerly the Vice President of The Academy of Military Sciences, Beijing Institute of Technology, and Shanghai Jiao Tong University. He is an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, a foreign member of the Academia Europaea, a fellow of The World Academy of Sciences, an IEEE Fellow, and an ACM Fellow.
Panelist
Dejan Milojicic, Hewlett Packard Labs, 2014 President, IEEE Computer Society
Bio: Dejan Milojicic is an HPE Fellow and VP at Hewlett Packard Labs, Milpitas, CA [1998-present]. Previously, he worked at the OSF Research Institute, Cambridge, MA [1994-1998] and Institute “Mihajlo Pupin”, Belgrade, Serbia [1983-1991]. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Kaiserslautern, Germany (1993); and his MSc/BSc from Belgrade University, Serbia (1983/86). His research interests include systems software, distributed computing, systems management, and HPC. Dejan has over 300 papers, 2 books, and 101 granted and 77 pending patents. Dejan is an IEEE Life Fellow (Fellow since 2010), ACM Fellow (2025), and HKN and USENIX member. Dejan was on 9 Ph.D. thesis committees, and he mentored over 80 interns. Dejan was president of the IEEE Computer Society (2014), an IEEE presidential candidate in 2019, editor-in-chief of IEEE Computing Now and Distributed Systems Online and he has served on many editorial boards and TPCs. Dejan led large industry-government-university collaborations, such as Open Cirrus (2007-2011) and New Operating System (2014-2017).
Panelist
Edmundo Tovar, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, 2021-2022 President, IEEE Education Society
Bio: Edmundo Tovar is a professor of enterprise information technology at the Technical University of Madrid. His research interests include open education, e-learning, learning technologies, and accreditation bodies. Tovar received a PhD in computer engineering from Universidad Politécnica de Madrid. He served as associate dean for Quality and Strategic Planning (2007–2012) and as executive director of the Open Education Office (2008–2016) at the Technical University of Madrid. He was an elected member of the Open Education Consortium’s Board of Directors (2009–2013). Tovar is a Certified Software Development Professional and Professional Software Engineering Master Certification by the IEEE Computer Society.
He has served as an elected member of the OpenCourseWare Consortium Board of Directors (2009–2013), Executive Director of the OCW Office of the UPM (2008–2012), and Executive Director of the Open Education Office at UPM (2013-2016). Consultant in Quality Assurance, he has been a member of many Committees of external Evaluation National and International Plans of Universities Evaluation. He has been Associate Dean for Quality and Strategic Planning (2007-2012) ). Currently, he is a member of the Accreditation Committee for EUROINF, European Quality Level for Informatics Studies (ANECA). He leads an Innovation Group and a Research Group in technologies applied to Open Education. He is the Editor of the Information Technology Editorial Board of MERLOT (Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching -www.merlot.org). He is the author of around 300 papers in Engineering Education.
Panelist
Hironori Washizaki, Waseda University, 2024 President, IEEE Computer Society
Bio: Hironori Washizaki is a professor and the Associate Dean of the Research Promotion Division at Waseda University in Tokyo, and a Visiting Professor at the National Institute of Informatics. He also works in industry as Outside Directors of SYSTEM INFORMATION and eXmotion. He received his Ph.D. in information and computer science from Waseda University in 2003.
Hironori serves as Chair of the IEEE CS Professional and Educational Activities Board Engineering Discipline Committee. He is spearheading the Guide to the Software Engineering Body of Knowledge (SWEBOK) evolution. He serves as Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Emerging Topics in Computing, Steering Committee Member of the IEEE Conference on Software Engineering Education and Training, and Advisory Committee Member of the IEEE CS flagship conference COMPSAC. He is a Professional Member of IEEE-Eta Kappa Nu. He has served as the program chair of multiple IEEE conferences, including ICST, CSEE&T, and SIoT/SISA of COMPSAC. He is the program chair of ICPC Programming Education Track and SCAM Engineering Track, workshop chair and publicity chair of ASE, local chair of COMPSAC, and Chair of IEEE CS Japan Chapter.
Hironori’s research interests include systems and software engineering. He has published more than 120 research papers in refereed international journals and conferences, including IoT-J, TETC, EMSE, SCICO, ICSE and ASE. He has received various awards and honors including IWESEP Best Paper Award and IJSEKE Most Read Article. He has led many academia-industry joint research and large-funded projects in software analysis and quality assurance. Since 2017, he has been the lead on a large-scale grant at MEXT called enPiT-Pro SmartSE, which encompasses professional education in IoT, AI, software engineering and business. Since 2015, he has been the Convener of ISO/IEC/JTC1 SC7/WG20 to standardize bodies of knowledge and professional certifications. Since 2019, he has been Steering Committee Member of APSEC.