2003 SA Award
The 2003 SA Pearcey Award for Information Technology was awarded to Adelaide innovator Dr Simon Ronald.
South Australia's Minister for Science and Information Economy Dr Jane Lomax-Smith said in presenting the top IT award today: "The capacity for South Australians to bring innovative research ideas to commercial reality is a key to the State's economic future.
Dr Simon Ronald
"Dr Ronald is among our innovative young South Australians who are harnessing information and communications technology to enable industries across the spectrum to achieve and grow.
"Their skills and ideas are enabling people in industries from mining to food production, education to the wine industry to make a real economic and social difference locally and internationally.
"It is this capacity of enabling business and industry to work more effectively that is the real strength of our information and communications technology industry," the Minister said.
The Minister presented Dr Ronald with the award at an Australian Computer Society, South Australian branch function today.
Dr Ronald, a graduate of the University of South Australia has contributed more than 10 years of innovative leadership in the areas of software development, research, company building, software contracting and corporate lecturing.
He is a co-founder of the Maxamine group of companies, which is now an international software group with offices throughout Australia and in the USA.
Dr Ronald pioneered the development of powerful new products that revolutionised the way in which companies analysed and managed their web sites as corporate assets.
He is also the creator of speed-reading and memory improvement software and is an expert in the area of genetic algorithms, algorithms and optimisation.
Dr Lomax-Smith is patron of the Pearcey Foundation in SA, which honours computing pioneer Dr Trevor Pearcey.
He led a project team that from 1947 to 1949 built Australia's first, and the world's fourth, operational computer. Known as CSIRAC, this computer is located in Melbourne and is the oldest surviving electronic computer in the world.
