A colleague of mine mentioned that I am listed in a List of Computer Scientists on Wikipedia. I visited the list and must say that I am honored and surprised. Honored is obvious — and surprised is because I never took a class in computer science so was not formally trained in computer science, but more importantly, because this list (at this stage) is a relatively short list and finding my name in this list is truly surprising.
I don’t know how these things happen — and did not even know about my name being on the list, in fact did not know that such a list exists. What is more important is that many systems in our society are going through transformations — and one can argue about ‘validity’ and implications of those but their existence makes you think about the future. The system in which a few people formed a ‘society’ and that society conferred an honor such as a ‘Fellow’ (and luckily I have a fair share of those) was a different mechanism than creating purely in a bottom-up manner a list like this one. Is this going to become as commonly– or more — used method of recognition? Time will tell. I feel that the last few year’s socio-technical changes are definitely transformative.
In any case, THANKS to those who made my ‘ego’ feel good by putting me on this list. Now I am more motivated to contribute some ideas that will make me convinced me that I belong in a list like this.
Enjoy it anyways. Congratulations!