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The boards of the KIVI Department of the History of Technology and of the Histechnica Association are pleased to invite you to attend a lecture to be given by Prof J.W.J. baron van Till entitled:

HISTORICAL PENETRATION OF GENERAL PURPOSE TECHNOLOGIES

on Saturday 28 January 2023 from 10.30 - 12.45 hours

Location: Science Centre, Bouwcampus 26, entrance 'B', Van der Burghweg 2, 2628 CS Delft

Science Centre entrance 'B'

PROGRAMME:

10.30:00: Walk-in with coffee and tea

11:00: Welcome and introduction

11.05:00: Lecture by Prof. Jaap van Till

11:50 a.m.: Break

12:15: Continuation of lecture and concluding discussion

12:45: End of meeting.

Summary of the lecture

A profound transition has been taking place in the world for decades. What we see from this are upheavals and some, for many, sudden crises as old recipes/policies no longer work. Example: hierarchies no longer work. That TRANSITION is from [value extraction] to [value creation] & from [pulling apart to see how something works/ can be repaired] to [synthesis/ putting together and then seeing what the emergent behaviour of the combination becomes => Synthecracy] & from [mechanical: zero-sum negotiation in conflicts between parties] to [nonzero sum synergy effects as in biology]. This talk will show these manifestations of transition as undercurrents of said crises and revolutions that are merely symptoms.

Young people understand this quite quickly, open as they are and curious about what future possibilities open up before them. To choose what they can become proficient in and in what way. Older people have a little more difficulty with what presents itself to them as chaos of uncertainty and change and what makes them long for glory days. Within revolutions, we can see a fixed sequence of developments over time with discontinuities. And that is with phases I, II, III, IV and with a General Purpose Technology (GPT) with associated infrastructure at its core.

Information about the speaker

Jaap van Till (1944) was professor of Business Telecommunications & Networks, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, TUDelft 1996-2000 and was often referred to as "the first internet professor". Jaap graduated in pattern recognition and signal compression, TUDelft. He worked for 10 years at AKZO on laboratory instrumentation and data networks. Co-founded ISOC.NL and HCC. He designed and helped build a number of large enterprise networks in Europe. He was a lecturer at the HAN in Arnhem, management consultant at James Martin Associates and Partner at consultancy firm Stratix.

He is currently a freelancer at Tildro Research and a member of the Supervisory Board at NDIX bv, the Dutch-German Internet Exchange. Blog: TheConnectivist. Wordpress.com.

APPLY

To attend this talk, please register:

  • KIVI members should register via the KIVI website.
  • Members of Histechnica should register through the secretary: hotzeboonstra@gmail.com
  • Interested parties who are not members can also register through the above channels. There will then be a charge of €5.00.

Upcoming activities in the Science Center Delft

  • Saturday 25 February 2023 at 11:00 lecture by Mr J.P. Sigmond: Paul van Vlissingen & son, 19th-century entrepreneurs in steam
  • Saturday 25 March 2023 at 11:00 a.m. lecture by Dr C.J. van Dullemen: The life and works of Prof Richard Schoemaker
  • Saturday 22 April 2023 at 11:00 lecture by Dr H. Heijmans: Title still unknown
  • Saturday 27 May 2023 at 11:00 am lecture by ir G van Ditshuijzen: History of our scale and its calculations
  • Saturday 24 June 2023 at 11:00 a.m. lecture by Prof J.F. Abbink: Radar and Electronic Warfare in World War 2

On the occasion of the 175th anniversary of KIVI, the History of Engineering Department has published a book highlighting the three founders of KIVI in the times in which they lived. The book will be available free of charge during the lecture for members of Histechnica and for members of the KIVI Department of History of Technology.

Documents