Every year, ICS members elect a council to represent its views and manage the Society's affairs over the following twelve months.
Specialist sub-committees, special interest groups and a full-time administrative staff also play a key role in the ICS's operation and success.
The Irish Computer Society is governed by a representative Council that consists of:
The Council elects four Officers – a Chairperson, a Vice Chairperson, a Treasurer and a Secretary. The office of President is an honorary position bestowed by the Society for periods of up to three years.
The role of the ICS Council is to:
Committees are appointed as needed by Council to handle detailed matters that cannot practically be dealt with by normal meetings of Council. All members are eligible to become members of Committees subject to approval by Council.
The business of the Society is managed on behalf of Council by full-time professional staff operating from offices in central Dublin.
The current ICS Officers and Council Members are as follows:
A Chartered IT Professional with over 25 years experience, Declan is the international
representative of the Irish Computer Society. He has been a member of CEPIS Execom since 2003 and currently chairs the
CEPIS Task Force on Professionalism.
Mike is Co-Director of Lero, the Irish Software Engineering Research Centre, and
Professor of Software Engineering at University of Limerick. Previously he was Director of the NASA Software Engineering
Laboratory and continues to serve as a NASA Expert.
John is an experienced Fintech leader with 36 years of experience in the ICT sector, including over 30 years at a
senior management level. As iCTO for OmniPay he is a member of the Fiserv Technology Services EMEA leadership team.
Educated in St. Mary’s College, UCD and Trinity College, John has been a member of the Irish Computer Society since 1990 and was first elected to the ICS Council in September 2004. He served as Vice President of the ICS from 2009 to 2012 and served as President of the ICS from December 2012 to December 2015. He was awarded a fellowship of the ICS in May 2007.
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 promote professionalism in ICT and in helping to develop a professional CPD programme for ICS members
Mary lectures at the Computer Science Department, TCD, is a member of the Board of
Examiners of the Institution of Engineers of Ireland, and is deputy convenor of the European CEN TC251 working group on
security and safety in health informatics.
Padraig Farrell has been working in the IT industry for over30 years. In that time he
has worked in software development, project management and service management. His particular interest is in
service management and is a member of the management committee of itSMF Ireland. Among his qualifications is
an MSc in Project Management from the Smurfit business school UCD.
As CTO for IBM Ireland, Ronan has a broad focus on technology with a particular emphasis on cloud and AI.
Ronan has held a variety of tech leadership roles with IBM in the almost 20 years he's worked there.
Ronan is recognised as a Fellow of the Irish Computer Society (FICS), Chartered IT Professional (CITP) and Chartered Engineer (CEng).
Ronan's also a leader of IBM's prestigious Academy of Technology.
MSc (Adv Sec/Digital Forensics), MSc (Comp Sys Design), MICS, BA (mod)
Dr. Cormac Callanan owns Aconite Internet Solutions (www.aconite.com) which provides expertise in cybersecurity risk mitigation and cybercrime. Dr. Callanan is qualified with a PhD in data privacy risks on mobile devices, an MSc in Computer Systems Design and an MSc in Advanced Security and Digital Forensics (GCHQ certified). He has over 30 years working experience on international computer networks and 20 years’ experience on illegal content and cybercrime activities on the Internet.
He co-authored the Council of Europe Guidelines on Cooperation between Law Enforcement and Internet Service Providers quoted by the European Court of Human Rights. Dr. Callanan is past-president and CEO of INHOPE (www.inhope.org) dealing with illegal child abuse material on the internet.
Kevin Thomas is the Managing Director for Hellios Ireland, he has 30 years’ experience working with technology companies.
Kevin has had a number of roles ranging from Software Developer, Systems Designer and Software Architecture but in the last 20 years’ he has been in senior management and leadership roles where he managed large numbers of technology teams and projects.
He has a B.Sc.(Hons) in Computer Science from Technological University Dublin, an M.Sc. in Computer Science from Staffordshire University and an MBA from Imperial College London.
Prior to joining Hellios Kevin was Chief Technology Officer with Sportdec and was also Chief Technology Officer with MMX, Data Electronics and Voice Logics.
Prof. Tiziana MARGARIA is the Chair of Software Systems at the Department Computer Science and Information Systems, University of Limerick. She is Course Director and program co-director of the brand new Immersive Software Engineering integrated BSc/MSc programme at UL.
Tiziana leads research and education in advanced software systems and explainable AI. Her work spans from the formal methods based approaches for high-assurance software in Lero, to the end-to end interoperability of heterogeneous comes systems in advanced manufacturing in Confirm, to software solutions for rigorous and explainable AI and ML in the Centre of Research Training in AI she co-leads and applications to integrated healthcare in the UL Cancer Network and the Limerick Digital Cancer Research Centre.
She is Fellow and currently Vice President of the Irish Computer Society, Vice President of the IFIP Working group on Design and Engineering of Electronic Systems, and past President of the European Association for Software Science and Technology.