IT industry pioneer dies

19:30 30th June 2008

The IT industry has been mourning the passing of one of computing's pioneers.

David Caminer, a founding developer at the computer company Leo, died on June 19th, aged 93.

One of the most influential IT careers of the era began when Mr Caminer was working at J Lyons and company.

He and two colleagues were sent to the US to report on office innovations and came back with the concept for the world's first business computer.

The soon-to-be-titled Leo computers became a vanguard for enterprise technology and his colleague John Aris credited Mr Caminer with inventing systems engineering, according to the Leo Computers Society.

He later received an OBE for overseeing the successful delivery of one of the largest computer projects attempted by the European Community at the time.

The news comes in the same month that the IT industry is celebrating the 60th anniversary of the first running of a computer program on 'The Baby' - the world's first stored-program computer.

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