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PETER DE JAGER NAMED LIFEBOAT FOUNDATION 2009 GUARDIAN AWARD WINNER
Abstract
Peter de Jager named Lifeboat Foundation 2009 Guardian Award Winner.
Story
December 15, 2009 -
The Lifeboat Foundation Guardian Award
is annually bestowed
upon a respected scientist or
public figure who has warned of a future fraught with dangers and
encouraged measures to prevent them.
The 2009 Lifeboat Foundation Guardian Award has been given to Peter de
Jager on the tenth anniversary of Y2K which he helped avert. This award
is in recognition of his
1993 warning which alerted the
world to the potential disaster that might have occurred on January 1,
2000 and his efforts in the following years to create global awareness
of the problem, and the possible solutions. His presentations, articles,
and more than 2,000 media interviews contributed significantly to the
world's mobilization to avoid that fate.
Peter's September 6, 1993, ComputerWorld
article
"Doomsday
2000" began:
"Have you ever been in a car accident? Time seems to slow down as you
realize you're going to crash into the car ahead of you.
It's too late to avoid it — you're going to crash. All you can do
now is
watch it happen.
The information systems community is heading toward an event more
devastating than a car crash. We are heading toward the year 2000. We
are heading toward a failure of our standard date format: MM/DD/YY.
Unfortunately, unlike the car crash, time will not slow down for us. If
anything, we're accelerating toward disaster.
This is a good news/bad news story. First the bad news: There is very
little good news. There is no way to avoid the fact that our information
systems are based on a faulty standard that will cost the worldwide
computer community billions of dollars in programming effort."
And thanks to the concerted programming efforts
of companies,
governments,
and other organizations throughout the world, this potential
crisis WAS AVERTED.
Hopefully we can all learn from this
example of how foresight and preparedness can indeed avert catastrophe
as technology marches ahead.
Peter de Jager is a speaker/writer/consultant on the issues relating
to
the Rational Assimilation of the Future. He has published hundreds of
articles on topics ranging from Problem Solving, Creativity, and Change
to the impact of technology on areas such as privacy, security, and
business. His articles have appeared in The Washington Post,
The
Wall
Street Journal, The Futurist, and Scientific
American.
His monthly schedule is hectic... In addition to presentations and
seminars on the topics above, he writes regular columns and produces a
monthly webinar.
Having spoken in 37 countries, he is recognized worldwide as an
exciting, provocative and engaging, speaker. His audiences have included
the World Economic Forum, The World Bank, and The Bank for International
Settlements.
His presentations use humor to challenge the myths surrounding our
understanding of the Change process and the benefits of technology. His
talks are suitable to both staff and upper management. His single minded
objective, despite the global nature of some of the issues, is always to
provide actionable solutions and new avenues of approach to seemingly
intractable problems.
His presentations and workshops are highly interactive, fun, irreverent
to mistaken ideas and most distinctively — provocative. His work
forces
you to think differently about things you thought you were already sure
you knew. In May 2001, he was honored by CIPS for his work in Y2K and
was at that time appointed as an Associate Director of The Global Future
Forum, a past Unisys Corporation initiative.
Peter's website is www.technobility.com and his
email address is pdejager@technobility.com.
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About Lifeboat Foundation
The Lifeboat Foundation is a nonprofit nongovernmental organization
dedicated to encouraging scientific advancements while helping humanity
survive existential risks and possible misuse of increasingly powerful
technologies, including genetic engineering, nanotechnology, and
robotics/AI, as we move towards a technological
singularity.
Contacts:
Lifeboat Foundation News office
1638 Esmeralda Avenue
Minden, NV 89423, USA
+1 775-329-0180
press@lifeboat.com
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