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Who We Are

"ACM is the world's oldest and largest educational and scientific computing society. Since 1947 ACM has provided a vital forum for the exchange of information, ideas, and discoveries. Today, ACM serves a membership of computing professionals and students in more than 100 countries in all areas of industry, academia, and government." (Quoting ACM.org)

The History Committee's purpose, as stated in our charter, is to foster preservation and interpretation of the history of the ACM and its role in the development of computing.

Announcements

Call for ACM History Fellowship Proposals
Posted Thursday, November 14th, 2012
  • The Association for Computing Machinery, founded in 1947, is the oldest and largest educational and scientific society dedicated to the computing profession, and today has 100,000 members around the world. To encourage historical research, the ACM History Committee plans to make two types of awards. Travel grants of $2,500 support smaller projects, while a fellowship grant of $5,000 may support a larger or more demanding project. Projects should focus on ACM activities, including those of members, officers, and prize winners, or ACM's rich institutional history, including consideration of its organization, publications, SIG activities, and conferences. Successful candidates may be of any rank, from graduate students through senior researchers. The current and past winners of the fellowship can be found here.
  • An announcement of 2012 call for fellowship proposals can be found here (also as a pdf-format document here). Proposals are due by 3 February 2012.

    Call for proposals

Franz Alt
Posted Thursday, July 21st, 2011
  • It is with great sadness that we note the passing of Franz Alt, who was President of ACM from 1950-1952. Here is Oral History Transcript of Franz C. Alt. Here is interview with Franz Alt on January 23 and February 2, 2006.

2011 ACM History Fellowship Winners Announced
Posted Thursday, June 30th, 2011
  • Congratulations to 2011 ACM History Fellowship Winners: Inna Kouper (Indiana University Bloomington), Andrew L. Russell (Stevens Institute of Technology), and Ksenia Tatarchenko (Princeton University). The current and past winners of the fellowship along with their project information can be found here.

Forthcoming Book on Histories of Computing
Posted Sunday, March 13th, 2011
  • A forthcoming book on Mike Mahoney's work on histories of computing, edited by Thomas Haigh, to be published this spring by Harvard University Press. Mike was a founding member of the ACM History Committee.

Call for ACM History Fellowship Proposals
Posted Thursday, January 27th, 2011
  • To encourage historical research, the ACM History Committee plans to make two awards in 2011. One, a travel grant of $2,500 to support historical research on the wide variety of ACM-related activities, including ACM members, officers, and prize winners. Second, a fellowship grant of $5,000 focusing on ACM's rich institutional history, including consideration of its organization, publications, SIG activities, and sponsored conferences. Successful candidates for either award may be of any rank, from graduate students through senior researchers. The current and past winners of the fellowship can be found here.
  • An announcement of 2011 call for fellowship proposals can be found here (also as a pdf-format document here). Proposals are due by 15 April 2011.

    Call for proposals

IEEE 125th Anniversary
Posted Tuesday, November 25th, 2008
  • In 2009 the IEEE will be celebrating its 125th anniversary. One event will be a conference on the history of technical societies. Such societies, through publications, meetings, standards, and other activities, have been vital in facilitating technical progress. The purpose of the 2009 conference is to explore the history of such societies worldwide, and we would very much value the participation of the Association of Computing Machinery.
  • The conference will be held from Wednesday 5 August through Friday 7 August 2009 in Philadelphia, which was the location of the founding of IEEE in 1884. We hope to have contributions from dozens of professional societies from around the world, so that the conference would help create a picture of the global history of the engineering profession. The call for papers is attached, and additional information is available on the conference website

    www.ieee.org/go/historyconference

    Call for papers

New ACM Project Archivist
Posted Saturday, October 14th, 2008
  • The Charles Babbage Institute is extremely pleased to announce that the new Project Archivist for the records of the Association for Computing Machinery started work on Monday, Sept. 29.

    Full story

William Aspray
Posted Saturday, September 13th, 2008

Michael S. Mahoney
Posted Thursday, July 24th, 2008