HiNC3 will take place in Stockholm 18 - 20 October 2010. Besides invited talks, contributed papers and panels, the conference will also honour the successful completion of a project on Swedish ICT history. Called “From Computing Machines to IT”, the Swedish Computer Society initiated the project with the support of the Division of History of Science and Technology at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) and the National Museum of Science and Technology.

Although humans have dealt with computing since the day someone felt the need to count on one’s fingers, the history of modern computing began some sixty years ago. In the Nordic countries as well as in most other places, it started shortly after the Second World War with efforts to design and build computers for military/industrial calculations and data processing. From there, information technology has spread into and penetrated all areas of society. Hence today, ICT is employed in areas ranging from the control of machinery and production lines in manufacturing, to business administration and office applications, and to e-health and e-government applications. Additionally, the private lives of people have been heavily affected by mobile phones and personal digital assistants. The internet and the World Wide Web offer information at one’s fingertips, not to mention computer games, multimedia, and other interesting applications.

In other words, there is no question that computers and information technology have had a tremendous effect on the Nordic countries and societies, not only technically, but also socially and culturally.

How did all this happen? The HiNC conferences contribute to answering this question.

There seems to be a Nordic consensus that ICT can and should be used for the benefit of members of society. This belief has led to the acknowledgment that the Nordic countries are now among the most ICT-dense countries in the world. Education in ICT in schools and in universities focuses not only on the technical aspects of computers and programming, but also on economical, organisational, human, and social aspects. In this way students obtain a broad view of ICT and its applications.

Nordic developments in hardware, software, and methodology were farsighted and successful. The Nordic countries can claim to have hosted initiatives to develop and standardize the programming language Algol, to establish a theoretical approach to the analysis and development of information systems, as well as being the originators of object-oriented programming and object-oriented development. These are only three examples. Many more are to be found in theoretical computer science as well as in practical applications of computing technology.