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ICS Officers and Council Members

President: John Ward

Educated in St. Mary’s College, UCD and Trinity College, John has been a member of the society since 1990 and was elected to the ICS Council in September 2004. John was re-elected to council for a further term in September 2008. He served as Honorary Secretary of the ICS until September 2009 and is currently Vice President of the ICS. He was awarded a fellowship of the ICS in May 2007.

He is an experienced ICT manager with 25 years of experience in the ICT sector, including 20 years at a senior management level. He has extensive hands on experience in the design, development, delivery and implementation of software solutions and services for the financial services, distribution, payments and travel sectors. He also has extensive experience with building & managing multiple leading edge technology infrastructures to support the above.

He is currently a member of the IT Management team of OmniPay, an Irish credit card payment processor where as Authorisation System & Relationship Manager he manages the OmniPay credit card Authorisation Service. John also manages the relationships with OmniPay's key software and communications technology providers and has been with OmniPay since 2002. Previously John worked in the software sector as Head of Professional Services, Customer Services and Quality Assurance in Allfinanz, a leading Irish financial services (life & pensions) software house. He was also Technical Director and Software Development Manager with Elstar Computer Systems in the late 80s and early 90s.

John has a particular interest in representing the views of members who are working in the ICT industry and in working to help develop a professional title and quality program of continuous professional development for ICS members.

Vice president: Declan Brady

Declan Brady has over 25 years experience in the IT industry. He graduated from Dublin Institute of Technology in 1986 with a degree in Computer Science and obtained his Masters Degree in Computer Applications (Software Engineering) from Dublin City University in 1997. His career in the ICT Industry has included roles with ICL, Ingres, Computer Associates, Hoskyns and Fujitsu, where he was awarded the title of Distinguished Engineer. He is currently working in a self-employed capacity as a Solutions Architect on a major systems change project with Aer Lingus. He is also studying for a second Masters Degree at the Business School of NUI Maynooth in conjunction with the Innovation Value Institute.

He has been a Council member of the Irish Computer Society since 2002, during which time he held a three year term as President. He is ICS’ international representative, representing ICS and the Irish ICT community to CEPIS and to IFIP. He has been a member of CEPIS Execom since 2003, having served as Treasurer and lately as Vice President. During his time in Execom he has been instrumental in supporting the establishment of their facilities in Brussels, and in creating the successful working arrangement that they have with the ECDL Foundation today, devoting a considerable amount of time to these endeavours.

He is currently chair of CEPIS Task Force on Professionalism, and he also represents CEPIS to IFIP. He is a Fellow of the Irish Computer Society, a Member of the British Computer Society and a Chartered IT Professional.

Honorary Secretary: Matt Lemon

Matt Lemon was educated in the UK and received a Masters degree in Computer Science and Forensics. Matt has been a member of the Irish Computer Society since 2008 and he was elected to the council in 2010. He served as a council member until 2012 when he was elected as Honorary Secretary.

Matt has worked in the ICT industry for over 20 years and held positions in both public and private sector working in consultancy / advisory roles as well as internal ICT positions. Matt has worked for the Department of Social Welfare, Bord Bia, Irish Life, William Fry and has worked in advisory roles for many others.

His particular area of interest and expertise is IT Security, Forensics and eDiscovery which he lectures in part time  and which sees him working with various law enforcement agencies and law firms.  Trained and accepted as an Expert Witness in IT, he also spends time in court giving evidence or opinions.

Within the ICS, Matt’s paticular interest is in building the professional status of those working within the ICT industry and encouraging more people to take up a career in ICT.

Honorary Treasurer: Mike Hinchey

Mike Hinchey is Co-Director of Lero, the Irish Software Engineering Research Centre, and Professor of Software Engineering at University of Limerick. Prior to joining Lero, Mike was Director of the NASA Software Engineering Laboratory and continues to serve as a NASA Expert. Mike holds a B.Sc. in Computer Systems from University of Limerick, a M.Sc. in Computation from University of Oxford and a PhD in Computer Science from University of Cambridge.

The author/editor of several books on various aspects of Software Engineering, at various times Mike previously held positions as Professor in Australia, UK, Sweden and USA. He is currently Chair of the IFIP Technical Assembly and Chair of IFIP Technical Committee 1 (Foundations of Computer Science) as well as Editor-in-Chief of Innovations in Systems and Software Engineering: a NASA Journal (Springer).

Council Member: Mark Gargan

Mark Gargan is a technical leader at IBM with specialties in OOP, Java, Javascript, XPagas, CSS, HTML, PHP, Android. He holds an M.Sc in Forensic and Security Computing from Dublin City University and a B.Sc, in Computer Science from University College Dublin.

 

Council Member: Michael O'Duffy

Micheal O'Duffy is CEO at the Centre for Software Engineering at DCU, where he specialises in the strategic direction of software based organisations. Through the range of training and consulting services at the CSE, he supports the management of software organisations in strategic direction, business planning, innovation and research and development. He has a special interest in agile methodologies. He is an accomplished evaluator, and has carried out due diligence of software organisations, as well as process assessments, product evaluations, project reviews, and technology reviews.

Michael has worked in a wide range of roles in software and IT as a practitioner in the development and deployment of applications across many industry sectors. While he contributes to a number of developmental activities in this revitalisation period in the ICS, his special interest in the ICS is the introduction of professional development services, and the ICS as a pivotal player in the ICT industry and the information society.

Council Member: Mary Sharp

Mary Sharp lectures at the Computer Science Department, Trinity College Dublin. She is the deputy convenor of the European body CEN TC251 working group 3 on security and safety in health informatics. Her research interests include data mining applied to medical research, distributed medical information systems, security in health informatics, workflow modelling and the teaching of mathematics through on-line courses.

Mary is also involved in European projects dealing with mathematics, workflow and education using the World Wide Web. She has worked as a consultant to the European Commission as evaluator for many framework proposals. She is a member of the Board of Examiners of the Institution of Engineers of Ireland.

Council Member: Fintan Swanton MSc CEng FICS MBCS CITP

Fintan is a partner in Expense Reduction Ireland, a consultancy specialising in cost management, focussing on cost and overhead analysis, vendor management, and contract negotiation. Previous employers include The Sunday Business Post, AIB, Prudential Europe and Advent Software. He has more than twenty years experience in ICT.

Fintan was elected to Council in 2003. His particular interest is in raising the public profile of the ICS, both to increase acceptance of the Society as the pre-eminent representative body for Irish ICT professionals, and to encourage recruitment of new members.