EURIM Secretary General Philip Virgo on Discussion Panel

Philip Virgo

Philip Virgo, Secretary General of EURIM, will be speaking in the Government 2010 Panel focused on the Internet and Government.  EURIM – The Information Society Alliance – brings together politicians, officials and industry to help improve the quality of policy formation, consultation, scrutiny, implementation and monitoring in support of the creation of a globally competitive, socially inclusive and democratically accountable information society. It works across all boundaries to help set the agenda, stage constructive debate and report on progress.

Philip has been associated with EURIM since it was relaunched in January 1994 . He was the first executive officer to be appointed and has carried the designation Secretary General since 1996.

Philip has had extensive supplier and user-side information technology experience.  At the Wellcome Foundation he became involved in national IT Policy issues, helped draft the technology policies of both main parties for the 1979 election and in 1981 was the founding “Industry Vice-Chairman” of the Parliamentary Information Technology Committee (PITCOM).

In 1982 he returned full-time to ICT and joined the National Computing Centre (NCC) to handle National Issues and set up a Technology Assessment Service. Shortly afterwards he was given responsibility for the NCC Microsystem Centre: the flagship “awareness programme” of the day. From 1983-1989 he ran the City C3 Club, bringing together high tech investors and fund-seekers. He helped found the Federation Against Software Theft (FAST) in 1984, ran the NCC studies into reasons for the IT Skills Crisis of the mid-1980s and actions likely to be effective and also provided inputs to ministers on how best to advise small firms and encourage investment in innovation. After leaving NCC in 1986 he was retained as an advisor until 1992 and was on the South East regional committee as a member for several years afterwards.

Philip was Finance Executive of PITCOM from 1982-2006 and remains on the Council and Programme Committee. He was an external advisor to the High Tech Unit of Barclays Bank (1983-89), Campaign Director for the Women in IT Campaign (1989-92), IT Skills Advisor to the West London TEC (1991-2, a Specialist Advisor to the Information Committee of the House of Commons (1993-4), has been Strategic Advisor to the Institute for the Management Information Systems (IMIS, previously IDPM) since 1993 and has served on various advisory boards and committees. He has written extensively on the social and economic impact of new technologies and how to handle them, whether from a political or business perspective.