For a more equitable society

2003

During March 2003, I posted the note "I boycott the USA" on my personal Web site because the United States started unilaterally an illigitimite war against Irak, in addition to boycotting many efforts of the United Nations that I consider important for the future of our world and the human society.

At the same time, I also included an open letter to the presidents of the professional societies ACM and IEEE in order to urge them to introduce equitable international representation in the important boards and committees of these organizations. ACM and IEEE were originally conceived as national associations within the USA, but they have gradually taken up international leadership, especially through their high quality journals and international conferences. If they present themselves as international associations, they should have an equitable representation from different countries among the people that make the decisions concerning journals and conferences and about the rules that govern these organizations.

2008

Five years later - what has changed ?

• Certain other countries have become more powerful; it has become more difficult for the USA to unilaterally dominate the world.
• The support for the programs of the United Nations is still a concern.
• The ACM and IEEE still cannot be seen as truely international organizations.

Let me expand on the last point ...

First, I would like to note that the International Federation of Information Processing (IFIP) is an international professional organization with a broad international representation at the different levels of its organization. It organizes many first-class conferences in different fields (see here).

ACM and IEEE are still not really international organizations since most of their boards and committees are almost completely dominated by people from the USA. In 2003 I spoke about terminating my membership if this situation would not change. - Up to now, the situation has not changed much, and I am still a member. I think it is best, in order to change the situation, to work inside the organizations to push for some changes. Although I must admit that I did not help much in this respect during the last years, I would like to encourage people from different countries to get involved in these organizations and to make some changes happen.

In the following, I present some information about the current international representations in ACM and IEEE (extracted from the public information available on the Web).

ACM

• The most important activities of ACM are probably performed by the Special Interest Groups (SIGs). The SIG Executive Board contains 9 people from the USA and one person from the UK. Among the SIG chairs, there are 17 from the USA, 2 from Canada, one from Switzerland and another person without address.
• The ACM awards are also very visible. There is an overall Awards Committee including 20 persons from the USA, one from Canada and one from the UK.
• Among the Award Subcommittees for the different awards, I got the following overall count (for the following awards: Turing, Infosys, Software Systems, Hopper, Distinguished Services, Outstanding Contribution, Doctoral, Fellows): 22 people from the USA and one from each of the following countries: Germany, China, Canada, UK, Italy, Israel.
• Among the new Fellows of the ACM, there are 30 from the USA and 8 from other countries.
• Here are some examples of compositions of the Editorial Boards of some ACM journals (note: the Editors-in-Chief were from the USA):
  • Journal of the ACM: 21 from USA, 2 from Israel.
  • Transactions on Internet Technologies: 23 from USA, 2 from UK, Germany and Korea, one from Netherlands, China, Italy, Canada.
  • Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology: 8 from USA, one from Germany, UK, Italy, Canada.
• I am not sure whether anywhere one can find the information about the nationalities of the membership (what proportion comes from different countries).

IEEE

• For the high-level committees of the IEEE, the members are listed in most cases only by name, without any further information. I presume that in most cases these are overwelmingly people from the USA. Why is the information about the country of residence not given ?
• The most important activities of IEEE are probably performed by the "Societies". For instance,
  • the Board of Governors of the Computer Society includes presumably 11 people from the USA, two from Canada, one from Japan, and 7 for which only the name is listed. The short CV given 14 people does not include any clear indication about their country of residence. One actually has the impression that this information is hidden on purpose. For two CV, it was not clear to me in which country the people reside from reading the CV (they are included in the number for the USA).
  • the Board of Governors of the Communication Society includes among the voting members 17 people from the USA, two from Canada, and one from Poland, Korea, Italy, UK and China (total of 24).
• Among the new Fellows of the IEEE, there are 145 from the USA and 123 from other countries (comment: not so bad, but could be improved)
• Here are some examples of compositions of the Editorial Boards of some IEEE journals (note: the Editors-in-Chief were from the USA):
  • Transactions on Software Engineering: Editor-in-Chief from UK, 14 members from USA, 9 from UK, 3 from Australia, 2 from Canada, Germany and Japan, and one from Italy, China, France, Belgium, plus one with e-mail address from "itu" (note: this count assumes that e-mail addresses from "edu" belong to the USA, which is not always true).
  • Transactions on Communications: Editors-in-Chief from USA and UK, 24 members from USA, 9 from Italy, 8 from Canada, 3 from Korea, China and Taiwan, 2 from Australia, Singapore, UK, and one from Qatar, Japan, Iran, Sweden, Greece, India (total of 62)
• I am not sure whether anywhere one can find the information about the nationalities of the membership (what proportion comes from different countries).

Last update: September 2008