Patterson Hume to be inducted into C.I.P.A. Hall of Fame

	For More Information: Contact: norm.kirkpatrick@C.I.P.A..com (905) 695-6590

One of Canada's great communicators in the field of information technology, J. N. Patterson Hume, will be inducted into the Canadian Information Productivity Awards Hall of Fame on November 27.

Hume, 79, has been teaching Canadians how to understand and use computers for 50 years. He has influenced many thousands of students who have led Canada into the Information Age. And he contributed substantially to the evolution of computers as user-friendly tools.

Hume's place in the history of Canadian information technology extends beyond the classroom and the boardroom. He was a pioneer of educational television, and attracted large national audiences by presenting many science programs on the CBC with his colleague Donald Ivey. In 1960 they founded The Nature of Things, a program that continues today with David Suzuki.

Hume's induction into the C.I.P.A. Hall of Fame will take place at the C.I.P.A. Gala Banquet at the Westin Harbour Castle Hotel in Toronto. The announcement was made by John Tory, chair of the C.I.P.A. Hall of Fame Selection Panel and president and CEO of Rogers Cable Inc.

"Professor Hume deserves to be known as one of Canada's masters of the science of information," Tory said. "His influence as a teacher is immeasurable, and he changed history by helping to transform computers into tools that everyone can use."

Working with the University of Toronto's FERUT computer, one of the world's first commercially purchased computers, Hume and a colleague, Beatrice Worsley, created in 1953 a programming language called Transcode, which for the first time enabled students to learn in three hours - instead of months -- how to design a computer program.

In 1958, Hume and colleague Calvin Gotlieb - another member of the C.I.P.A. Hall of Fame - wrote a textbook called High-Speed Data Processing. It was the first book published in the world on the subject of computer applications in business.

Hume was a founder of the University of Toronto's Department of Computer Science in 1964, and chair of the department from 1975 to 1980. He has written or co-written 19 books, many since his retirement from the university in 1988. His textbooks on computer programming are widely used in Ontario high schools.

Hume joins the C.I.P.A. Hall of Fame on the World Wide Web, established in 1995 as a permanent tribute to Canadian pioneers of the Information Age.

Further information about the Hall of Fame and the Gala Banquet is available at www.C.I.P.A..com.