On November 7th 2009, the ACCU will be holding a one day conference at Bletchley Park, home of the legendary World War II 'Enigma' code breakers, and the site at which the world's first digital computer went operational. Contact : astrid.byro@googemail.com Confirmed speakers (alphabetical order) include:

Tony Sale, lead on the working reconstruction of 'Colossus', the world's first digital computer. The original was used to break the German 'Lorenz' code, and played a vital role in the the run up to the Allied invasion of Europe. Tony Sale's personal web site Simon Singh, author, journalist and TV producer, specialising in science and mathematics, and author of 'The Code Book', a history of codes and code breaking from Ancient Egypt to the Internet. Simon Singh's personal web site Phil Zimmermann, the original creator of the PGP e-mail encryption package, which despite three years of government persecution became the most widely used e-mail encryption software in the world. Phil Zimmermann's personal web site The Conference will be held in the elegant Victorian Bletchley Park Mansion, at the centre of Bletchley Park itself, allowing conference attendees the opportunity to visit the exhibits on show at the National Museum of Computing and the rest of Bletchley Park. Bletchley Park is home to a number of unique artifacts, including the Colossus, the Bombe (including the mock-up that featured in the film 'Enigma'), original Enigma machines, and a Lorenz coding machine. The National Museum of Computing web site is at http://www.tnmoc.org

The conference is organised by the ACCU. The ACCU is an organisation of programmers who care about professionalism in programming and are dedicated to raising the standard of programming. The proceeds of the conference will go to the Bletchley Park Trust to help with the upkeep of Bletchley Park. Conference rates have not yet been finalised, but will be in the region of £95/person. The ACCU web site is at http://accu.org. A full schedule will be available on the ACCU web site shortly.