The 2018 ACS President’s Award has been presented, with Dr Arthur Tatnall receiving the honour for his lifetime contribution to ACS and the Australian ICT sector.

Tatnall was given the award at the ACS Victoria member forum in Melbourne last Tuesday.

“I am very pleased to have received this award,” Tatnall said. “It will certainly go up on the wall.”

After joining ACS in 1983, Tatnall served on the Victorian Branch Executive between 1987 and 1995.

In 1996 he received ACS’ Murton Award for his service to ACS members.

Tatnall has also spent much of his career deeply entrenched in the ICT education space, most notably at Victoria University, where he is currently an Adjunct Professor in Information Systems.

A former high school physics teacher, Tatnall only fell into computing “when the school got an Apple II.”

He has previously worked as an Educational Computer Systems Analyst with the Victorian State Computer Education Centre and as a Chief Examiner in VCE Year 12 Computer Science.

Internationally, he has chaired ten International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP) conferences on computing education.

Now with decades of experience in the ICT education space, Tatnall explains he has seen the industry transform in ways he never expected.

“When it started [ICT education] those of us involved really thought we were going to make a fundamental change to education,” he said.

“It didn’t happen – the main change word processing.

“But that was before the internet, so we’re getting quite a bit of change now.”

Presenting him with the award was ACS President Yohan Ramasundara, who praised Tatnall’s contribution to the wider ICT and education sectors.

“It’s more than just the ACS that Arthur has served,” he said. “He has been a tireless servant of ICT in Australia.”

“He was a pioneer of ICT education in this country, a passionate historian and a widely respected author of books and journals.

“He championed the introduction of computer studies in secondary education in the 80s and was instrumental in the development of a pedagogy for computers studies in schools that continues to be influential to this day.”

Tatnall was recognised alongside Andrew Parbury, who celebrated his 50 years of ACS membership.

Parbury was previously awarded Honorary Life Membership in 2015 for his work on the Victorian Branch Executive Committee and his establishment of three Special Interest Groups.