Niels Eilif Hansen
email: niels-eilif@webspeed.dk

Information Technology and Danish Agriculture

During the second half of the 20 th century Danish agriculture has experienced large-scale changes. The agricultural profession has been highly mechanized and Denmark has experienced an extensive movement of people from the rural areas to the cities. The cultivated area and the number of farms have been reduced and so has the number of employees, but the grand total of agricultural production has risen. A development which has been highly supported by information technology starting with punched cards in the 1950s and later resulting in a very efficient Danish agricultural sector, beeing the largest export sector in Denmark.

Introduction

This is the story about how nearly 200,000 independent Danish farmers as early as the 1950s began to take advantage of the new technological opportunities represented by punched cards.

The development began in 1954 in the dairy sector, and a few years later the slaughterhouse sector followed suit. In March 1962 the dairies and slaughterhouses established a company called Mejeriernes og Slagteriernes Hulkortcentraler with the main office in Aarhus and offices in Odense and Roskilde. After being centralized in 1973 and located in Aarhus the name changed to LEC -Landbrugets EDB-Center (Danish Agricultural EDP-Center).

Over the next 30-40 years LEC played an important role in the development of the Danish agricultural sector increasing the productivity and profitability of Danish farming making the agricultural sector the largest export sector in Denmark.

With the establishment of LEC, Danish farmers got an EDP service centre, which made it possible for them -in close co-operation with dairies, slaughterhouses and feedstuff businesses -to take advantage of large-scale operations supporting efficient utilization of the expensive machinery. Furthermore it was possible to jointly develop EDP programs and to continue further development based on common expe-riences.

Over the years LEC became one of the largest EDP service centres in Denmark, indirectly owned by all farmers who belonged to a co-operative slaughterhouse or dairy or were members of a professional society. It was extraordinary that an entire business sector in this way was able to co-operate in order to take advantage of the technological progress.

Danish Agriculture

The cooperative Movement

Denmark has always been an agricultural country. The primary production originally consisted of a huge number of small family owned units. A great deal of Denmark's export has always been agricultural products. Until the 1870s corn was Denmark's most important export article and Great Britain was the most important export market. Gradually corn from overseas countries outmatched the Danish export, and therefore Danish agriculture changed from production of vegetables to animal production with focus on export of butter and bacon to Great Britain.

To ensure an industrial production of high quality products the Danish farmers started the cooperative movement -an organizational form which was a democratic alternative to the capitalistic organized business life. The farmers got common ownership of the production companies in a democratic community. Each farmer had one and only one vote at general meetings, regardless of the size of their livestock. In 1882 Hjedding Andelsmejeri was established as the first cooperative dairy, and already in 1890 about 700 cooperative dairies were established. The first cooperative slaughterhouse was established in 1887. The following years a number of wholesale societies and export associations were founded as cooperative enterprises. A number of agricultural unions were founded in order to help the members with agricultural and accounting related problems.

Today agriculture and food are Denmark's largest industry, employing around 150,000 people and exporting agricultural products, food and equipment at an annual value of around € 15 billion.

Organizational structure in Danish Agriculture

The medium-sized and large farm units were organized in a number of local associations, which together formed the Federation of Danish Farmers' Union. The small farm units were correspondingly organized in local associations, which together formed Danish Smallholders' Union. In the 1950s about 136,000 farmers were members of Federation of Danish Farmers' Union and about 103,000 were members of Danish Smallholders' Union.

As for the farm products the farmers were members of cooperative societies representing the individual products such as butter, cheese, bacon, poultry, potatoes, sugar and more. These businesses were all members of The Federation of Danish Cooperative Societies.

Federation of Danish Farmers' Union, Danish Smallholders' Union and The Federation of Danish Cooperative Societies together formed The Agricultural Council, which has been the common mouthpiece for the agricultural sector in matters related to the government, the authorities and the surrounding world.

In 2003 Federation of Danish Farmers' Union and Danish Smallholders' Union merged into Danish Agriculture. In 2009 The Danish Agriculture & Food Council was established as a result of a merger of the following agricultural organizations: Danish Agriculture, the Danish Bacon and Meat Council, the Danish Agricultural Council, the Danish Dairy Board and Danish Pig Production. The Danish Agriculture & Food Council represents the farming and food industries of Denmark including businesses, trade and farmers' associations.

Changes in Structure

From 1950 till 2000 Danish agriculture has experienced large-scale changes. The agricultural profession has been highly mechanized, and Denmark has experienced an extensive movement of people from the rural areas to the cities. The cultivated area has been reduced about 10 % from 3,094,000 hectare in 1960 to 2,770,000 hectare in 1991. The number of farms has been reduced from 196,100 in 1960 to 74,900 in 1991, and in the same period the average size has increased from 16 to 37 hectare. Especially the number of farm with less than 20 hectare has been reduced, and the number of farms with more than 50 hectares has risen from 6,300 in 1960 to 16,100 in 1991. This development is continuing.

As horses gradually were replaced by tractors the number of horses has been reduced from 171,000 in 1960 to 32,000 in 1991. The horses are now mostly used for hobby and sport. The number of cattle has been reduced from 3,397,000 in 1960 to 2,222,000 in 1991, whereas the number of pigs in the same period has increased from 6,147,000 to 9,783,000.

The number of full-time employees in the primary agricultural sector has declined from about 300,000 in 1960 to about 95,000 in 1991.

The pig production is of great importance to the Danish export. The number of slaughter hogs has increased from 8,067,000 in 1961 to 11,600,000 in 1972, 13,990,000 in 1982 and 20,190,000 in 1997. The meat production increased from about 650 mill. kg in 1960 to about 1,250 mill. kg in 1990. The number of farmers with pig production has been reduced drastically with 86.6 % from 1961 till 1997, and in the same period the average production per farm has increased from 52 to 893 pigs.

As for cattle the total number of cattle has declined drastically from 3,398,000 in 1960 to 2,181,000 in 1992, and the number of milk cows has been halved from 1,440,000 to 720,000. The number of milk cattle herds has been reduced form 171,000 in 1959 to 20,700 in 1991. The average of cows per herd has thus increased from about 9 in 1960 to about 35 in 1992, and especially the number of herds with more than 49 cows has increased. In 1982 there were more than 49 cows in 12.9 % of the dairy herds. In 1991 this percentage had increased to 23.0 %.

The milk production has declined from about 5,000 mill. kg in 1960 to about 4,600 mill. kg in 1992. In the beginning of this period the greater part of the milk production was used for butter production and a smaller part for cheese production. In 1992 the same part of the milk production was used for butter production, respectively cheese production, and a production of milk powder and other canned milk products was starting up. Apart from milk, meat and cultivation of plants Danish agriculture also produces for instance poultry, eggs, furred animals, potatoes and potato starch.

In other words -during the second half of the 20th century the Danish agricultural sector has experienced a remarkable development through mechanization and efficient utilization of the technological achievements. In spite of the fact that the number of people employed in the agricultural sector has been reduced by about 65 % the grand total of agricultural production has risen and the export of agricultural products still accounts for a considerable part of the total Danish export, even though the share has been reduced from about 50 % in 1960 to about 20 % in 1990. LEC was established in order to use data processing to solve data handling problems related to the Danish agricultural sector and to supply advisory service assistance to this sector. The vision was:

LEC -Danish Agricultural EDP-Center

•

Common efficient utilization of the very expensive machinery • Establishing a common EDP-knowledge, which could be an advantage for the whole agricultural sector

• Developing standard systems for different groups of users as well as systems for individual user s

• Establishing data bases for farmers, companies and organizations.

LEC was run on a non-profit basis. All profit was invested in the development of new and better data processing systems, services and education.

The aim was to be the one EDP-supplier supporting the agricultural sector in a broad sense, and therefore the original ownership of LEC was extended. From January 1971 the owners of LEC were:

• Federation of Danish Dairy Organizations • Federation of Danish Co-operative Bacon Factories • Danish Farmers' Union • Danish Smallholders' Union • The Agricultural Council
In this way LEC was owned indirectly by every farmer who belonged to a cooperative slaughterhouse or dairy or was a member of a professional society.

The Structure and the Staff of LEC

LEC was divided into four departments:

• Advisory department • Systems department • Production department • Administration

The Computers at LEC

From the beginning LEC was focusing on the efficient utilization of very expensive machinery and on taking advantage of the very fast development of new technologies. LEC's rapid growth due to the rising need for data processing led to a continuous updating of the computing equipment, both in hardware (processors, peripherals and terminals) and in software. LEC always replaced processors concurrently with the development of new technology. Installation of processors over the years can be seen in table 3. In 1988 an IBM 3090/600E was installed at LEC and later an IBM 3090/330J and an IBM 3090/600E.

The Technological Development

In Denmark LEC tried to be in front when it came to utilizing new technologies as for instance OCR (Optical Character Recognition). The growing number of data to be recorded in punched cards required too much manpower, so in 1967 LEC began to make use of OCR. The two IBM 1287 Optical Readers, which were installed, made it possible to record data from handwritten as well as printed forms. At many advisory centres, information from the cash book was entered by an operator using a special typewriter, which printed a tally toll with machine-readable OCR numbers and symbols. A large part of all LEC's input transactions was in OCR forms until the 1970's, where terminals/display stations placed at customers' location took over as data recording medium.

The telecommunication development began in the late 1960s, and in 1971 LEC installed terminals at two customer locations. At this time the transmission speed was only 1200 bps. The number of installed terminals at customer locations increased very fast, and in 1989 more than 28,000 terminals across Denmark were connected to LEC's computers. Also a great number of terminals placed at customer locations abroad were connected to LEC's computers.

As the computer systems handled a still broader span of business administration, the number of reports and statistics to be printed increased rapidly. In 1979 LEC installed IBM 3800 Printing Subsystem, printing up to 20,000 lines per minute. Very soon three IBM 3800 Printing Subsystems were installed at LEC, and in 1993 LEC printed 130 million pages.

The output was distributed to farmers and companies, but a lot of copies were filed and took up many running metres in the archives, where it could be difficult and time consuming to find the information needed. To reduce the need for archive space and to make data retrieval easier, LEC installed equipment for producing microfiche in 1975. LEC produced a great number of microfiche every year. For instance, in 1983 LEC produced 110,000 originals and 275,000 copies of microfiche, which corresponded with around 80 million pages of paper. In the 1980s the use of microfiche was reduced, and it gradually ended as the prices for online storage capacity with direct access from terminals became cheaper.

As the volume of electronic data increased, the need for being able to quickly and efficiently store and retrieve data also increased. A tape robot was installed at LEC, and from a customer's data screen it was possible in a few minutes to retrieve data.

Farmer Terminal

During the 1970s most of the Danish dairies, slaughterhouses, feedstuff businesses and advisory centres took advantage of telecommunication services provided by LEC using a great number of terminals connected to LEC's computers. Around 1980 LEC started a project to develop a farmer terminal, which was a piece of hardware based on the idea of bringing EDP to the farmers' own desks. A special farmer terminal was developed and a small number was produced, but without much success. The development process had been overtaken by the very fast PC development. However, LEC's attempt to develop a special farmer terminal later proved valuable, as it prepared the Danish farmers for a future strongly influenced by new information technology, which has let to new opportunities to make farm production more efficient. And in the year 2000 almost every farmer owned a PC.

Outside Agriculture

In the late 1960s LEC experienced a demand for EDP service from customers outside the agricultural sector. In 1972 LEC decided to establish a department to expand LEC's business with these customers. At that time LEC almost enjoyed a monopoly of EDB services to the agricultural sector. The new department delivered EDP services on the same conditions to customers both inside and outside the agricultural sector. LEC wanted to prove its competitive competences. The department experienced a positive development and a fast increasing turnover to about 25% of LEC's total turnover in 1986.

LEC India

In the early 1990s programmers and systems developers was a scarce resource in Denmark, with growing salaries as a consequence. To get enough and cheaper manpower LEC established a subsidiary in Bangalore (Bangaluru) in India in 1994. In March 1995 five highly skilled Indian systems developers began working at LEC India, and at the end of 1995 LEC India employed 44.

Turnover

LEC's turnover was growing fast as can be seen below (DKR):

LEC for Sale

In the 1990's the information technology was widespread, and the PCs became cheaper to buy. The use of computer power changed from primarily being used for administrative purposes to handling of information in a broader sense. EDP had changed to IT, Information Technology. The merging of dairies, slaughterhouses, feedstuff businesses and advisory services resulted in very big business units such as Arla Foods, Danish Crown, DLG and Danish Agricultural Advisory Service. Each of these units was big enough to have their own IT department, and the need for a common utilization of the information technology was gradually reduced. In April 1999 LEC was sold to Maersk Data, and the agricultural owners of LEC realized a fairly good accumulated capital.

Systems Development at LEC

From the beginning in 1962 LEC's primary task was to efficiently utilize the very expensive electronic data processing equipment such as IBM 1401, which was installed to substitute the punched card machinery. The very fast development of still more powerful equipment increased the need for development of new systems to utilize the new opportunities. LEC played an important part in this development of systems to be used by both farmers, dairies, slaughterhouses, feedstuff businesses and advisory centres.

The employees at LEC possessed the technological skills for developing computer systems, and the systems was designed in close co-operation with agronomists at the Knowledge Centre for Agriculture as well as representative from customers such as dairies, slaughterhouses, feedstuff businesses and so on. These representatives took care of the users requests for facilities in the systems to be developed.

Many different systems have been developed at LEC a few of which are briefly described below. They are all intended to make the Danish farming industry more efficient.

Milk Recording System

Milk recording started in Denmark in 1895 when the first recording society in the world was launched. The main purpose of milk recording has always been to collect data that could be used to improve cattle productivity. As more and more farmers joined the recording societies, an even greater amount of data had to be handled systematically. The computerization, which started in the 1950s, resulted in a still more sophisticated utilization of the data.

The number of milk recorded herds reached its peak in 1957 with almost 80,000 herds with an average size of about 11 cows. Over the following 40 years the number of herds dropped to about 12,000. In this period the number of milk recorded cows dropped from approx. 875,000 to approx. 600,000 in 1995. Thus the average size of a Danish milk cattle herd increased to 51 cows. In the same period the productivity increased considerably. Milk production per cow rose from 4,000 kg to almost 7,000 kg and fat production from 170 kg to 310 kg.

The basic purpose of a milk recording system was to monitor the quantity and quality of each cow's milk in order to provide information for allocating and controlling each cow's feed to make the production of milk as economical as possible. Furthermore the system recorded details of slaughtering, calving and lactation in order to provide accurate information to the farmer on how efficiently he was running his herd.

A technician visited each herd once a month to take a sample of each cow's milk. He recorded the quantity and took the samples to a milk testing laboratory for testing for fat and protein. All the recorded data were sent to LEC. In the beginning data were converted to punched cards. Later on, the use of OCR forms reduced the cost of data collection. With more than 700,000 cows to be controlled it resulted in around 7,000,000 fat and protein analyses every year. All the data were accumulated at LEC, and in fact more information was accumulated for each cow than the tax authority accumulated for each tax payer.

About 60 owners and young cattle

The milk Data Base, w duction, ins Cattle Data managemen

Feed Pl

Dairy Cattle Breeding

Milk recording and feed planning are essential to the farmers, but also a wellorganized cattle reproduction is important in the long run to give the farmer a better outcome. Bull stations are responsible for selecting suitable bulls, semen, for inseminating cows and evaluating the results of these inseminations. Many doses of semen are kept frozen during the evalu ation process, which takes about five years. During this time the bull's first and second generation is studied closely for milk yield, disease, calving problems and other factors. If the results are satisfactory, the decision is taken t o use the frozen semen for insemination. LEC's dairy cattle breeding system was among other things handling the recording of the genetic and production results of selective inseminations. It is important to the farmer to know the genetic characteristics of the individual bull in order for him to select the semen for insemination of his cows.

Pig Production

Pig production in Denmark is quite big, and live pigs, bacon, and pig meat has formed a substantial part of Danish agricultural export. Pig breeding and management of pigs have been of enormous importance to the Danish farming economy. Computer systems have been developed in cooperation between LEC and the National Committee for Pig Breeding and Production. They have been as important to the pig farmers as the cattle breeding systems have been to the cattle farmers. A lot of information has been accumulated and processed by the computer systems to provide the farmers with essential information, e.g., on how to select the best young sows for further breeding.

LEC's pig production control systems have made it possible to keep a close watch on all aspects of pork production such as economics, breeding, health and feeding. They have played a large part in increasing productivity at the farms. In the 1980's the systems were used by about 5,000 large-scale pig farmers with 300,000 sows.

Financial Systems for Farmers

The Danish farmers are legally obliged to prepare tax accounts every year. LEC's accounting and budgeting systems were developed in order to handle the accounts of a large part of Danish farmers through a number of local advisory centres. In 1981 about 55,000 farmers were using the systems. Apart from preparing tax accounts the systems' main purpose was to give the farmer information on the efficiency of his total production, comparing this year with the last year's results and comparing the results with the budget. Thus the farmer could optimize his plans for the next period and see what the likely outcome would be.

Systems for Dairies

In 1959 1,200 dairies all over Denmark received milk from the milk farmers. From 1970 a wave of mergers reduced the number of dairies. The mergers resulted in one large cooperative dairy company (Arla Foods) and a few privately owned dairies. LEC developed systems to take care of different administrative tasks. One task was to manage payments to the farmers for delivering milk to the dairies. Once or twice a month LEC produced supplier settlements for the farmers (up to 45,000 farmers) and transferred the payment for the milk from the dairy to the farmers' bank account. An invoicing system took care of billing the customers for milk, butter, cheese and other dairy products. Finally a system took care of wages and salaries to the staff and employees at the dairies, and an accounting system took care of financial transactions.

Systems for Slaughterhouses In 1962 77 slaughterhouses, of which 62 were cooperative, received pigs from the farmers. From 1968 the number was reduced very fast through merging, and in 1972 there were 31 slaughterhouses, of which 27 were cooperative. The mergers continued and resulted in the 1990s in one big cooperative slaughterhouse company (Danish Crown) and a few smaller cooperative and privately owned slaughterhouses. As was the case regarding the dairies LEC developed systems for different purposes. Supplier settlements for the farmers from delivering pigs and transferring the payment to the farmer's bank account, billing the customers for meat products, wages and salaries to the staff and employees, contract management, storage management and accounting.

Central Register of Farms -CLR

In the 1960s the pig production was increasing quite rapidly. In 1963 the Federation of Danish Co-operative Bacon Factories expected a possible overproduction of pork and therefore the organization wanted to prepare the implementation of a quota system for delivery of pigs to the slaughterhouses. A central register including all farms in Denmark was established as a punched cards register at LEC. Each farm got a unique 7 digits number (CLR-no.) and about 190,000 farms were included in this central register. The quota system for pig delivery was never established, but in 1970 the Danish government decided to introduce a solution which would pay extra money to the farmers who delivered high quality beef and veal. To manage such a solution a register including all farms was needed, and the central register (CLR) had to be updated. About 30,000 farms no longer existed and many farms had got new owners. The CLR register was updated and LEC developed an administrative system to handle the payment of a bonus for delivering high quality beef and veal.

Later the CLR register has played an important role when developing systems to help the individual farmer run his farm efficiently.

Conclusion

It strengthened the development of the Danish agricultural sector that the same EDP systems were used across the sector. Furthermore it strengthened the common advisory service that analysis and examinations could be performed based on the uniform databases. The great number of mergers in the sector pursuing large scale economies among dairies, slaughterhouses and feedstuff businesses also benefitted significantly from using the same data processing systems. It was making the merg-ing process easier. LEC thus contributed to the progress of a very efficient Danish agricultural sector and thereby strengthened the sector's competitive power in major export markets.

3. 1

 1 Establishment of LEC In 1954 the punched card equipment was introduced into the Data Processing Department of the Federation of Danish Dairy Organizations located in Aarhus. In 1958 the equipment was introduced in Data Processing Centers serving the slaughterhouses in Aarhus, Odense and Roskilde. Developments led to increasing co-operation between these organizations, and in March 1962 the dairies and slaughterhouses established a company called Mejeriernes og Slagteriernes Hulkortcentraler (The Dairies and Slaughterhouses' Punchcard Centre) -later known as LEC. The founders were: • Federation of Danish Dairy Organizations • Federation of Danish Co-operative Bacon Factories.

  Fig

Table 1 . Number of pig suppliers, divided on pig production per year Year Number of pig suppliers ≤500 pigs 501-2000 pigs 2001-5000 pigs ≥5001 pigs Total 1961

 1

		153,608	528	5		154,141
	1972	87,489	2,830	54		90,802
	1982	51,385	6,917	602	32	58,936
	1992	22,433	6,797	1,858	243	31,331
	1997	12,446	5,202	2,398	519	20,565

Table 2 .

 2 Changes in production of butter, cheese, and milk powder

	Year	Butter production mill. kg	Cheese production mill. kg	Milk powder and other preserved milk products mill. kg
	1960	166.7	113.4	64.0
	1991	70.5	286.7	138.8

Table 3 .

 3 Computer installations and capacities.

	Year of procure-ment	Type	Number	Transactions per second	Memory size in bytes
	1961/1962	IBM 1401	4	5 4 -16 KB
	1966/1968	IBM 360/30	2	10 16 -64 KB
	1970/1971	IBM 360/50	2	40 512 KB
	1971	IBM 370/155	1	800 1 MB
	1972	IBM 360/145	1	400 512 KB
	1973/1974	IBM 370/158	2	1,000,000 2 MB
	1977	IBM 370/158-3	2	1,100,000 1,5 -2,0 MB
	1978	IBM 3033/U	1	5,000,000 4 -6 MB
	1981	IBM 3033/U	1	5,000,000 4 -6 MB
	1981	NAS AS/9000	1	7,500,000 16 -24 MB
	1982	IBM 3081/D16	1	10,100,000 16 MB
	1983	IBM 3081/K24	1	15,400,000 24 MB
	1984	IBM 3084/Q48	1	25,000,000 48 MB
	1985	IBM 3084/Q64	1	25,000,000 64 MB
	1986 (February)	IBM 3090/200	1	28,000,000 64 MB
	1986 (November)	IBM 3090/400	1	50,500,000 128 MB


Morten Holst
email: moho@gentofte.dk

The Digital, Strategic and Citizen-Centric Project 'Genvej' -introducing ICT in Gentofte Kommune

Keywords: E-government, digitalization, public administration, municipality, citizen-centric, self-service

E-government, or online digital self-service solutions, is being used increasingly by governments and local authorities worldwide. When used properly as a part of a clear strategy in the entire organization it is an effective tool that helps authorities connect with their citizens and offer better service at reduced costs. In this paper we share and reflect on some experiences from the implementation of Genvej -a strategic and digital citizen-centric project in the municipality of Gentofte.

Introduction

This paper will examine and explain how the development and implementation of the digital, strategic and citizen-centric service 'Genvej' helped the municipality of Gentofte deliver even more transparent, cost-effective, valued, relevant and personalized service to the citizens at a time, when most of the public sector was still trying to understand the theoretical possibilities of information and communication technologies.

Given the length of the paper, this should not be regarded as the complete and comprehensive story of Genvej including the entire lifespan of the project or the numerous twists and turns we have had to make during the years. It is however meant as a short introduction written in a retrospective view aiming to reflect on some of the knowledge and experiences we found particularly useful.

The municipality of Gentofte is located north of the Danish capital Copenhagen. The municipality covers 26 km 2 and has approximately 74.000 inhabitants distributed in 33.000 households. This makes Gentofte the 18th largest municipality in Denmark measured in number of inhabitants 1 . The municipality is considered a very wealthy area, and in average the citizens have a very high income compared to Denmark in general 2 . The high income combined with a high level of education and easy access to the internet makes Gentofte very receptive to new digital solutions.

Gentofte kept its status as a single municipality after the reform, but for the local politicians and administration it was clear that a new strategy was needed. A strategy in which the development, adaptation and introduction of new information and communication technologies would be vital in helping Gentofte deliver even better service to its citizens at lower costs. In Gentofte, the "Citizen Service Center" had existed as an analogue face-to-face service center helping citizens with their needs since 1996, but the digital evolution and an increasing number of self-service solutions meant an opportunity to offer a new form of service. It was also clear that there was a need to collect more services across the municipality instead of spreading them further in order to make a more efficient administration.

The digital maturity in Denmark at the time got a massive lift, as commercial companies such as banks and airline companies introduced numerous online systems, which meant that the customers could do a lot of their business from home, using their computers without going to the bank or calling the airline companies. Furthermore since the beginning of 2001 'the Digital Signature' had been developed, which meant that citizens were able to send and receive secure emails from companies and some authorities.

This new way of communicating and delivering service meant a demand for something similar within the public sector. The politicians and directors in Gentofte recognized the need and began looking for suitable solutions. At first the municipality engaged in collaboration with other municipalities in an attempt to create one common single digital entrance. In 2005/2006 after a lot of talks and negotiations with other municipalities it was clear that not all of the municipalities had the resources and infrastructure needed to back a project like Genvej. It was therefore decided that Gentofte should continue by itself in order to fulfill the ambitions and strategy rolled out by its directors, and in February 2007 the first version of Genvej was launched.

2

Genvej -a Citizen Centric Project

Genvej is a direct digital portal that offers personalized information and selfservice options for the citizens. As a citizen you only have to login to one system that presents you with numerous possibilities for self-service. Genvej compiles and collates this information, so the citizens only see what is relevant to them. By showing the citizens the same information -gathered from a lot of public systems and databases -that previously only have been accessible to employees, Genvej makes the communication transparent and thereby enhance the service towards the citizens, offering them a wide range of tailored digital possibilities.

Genvej is also a strategic project that combines better citizen service with internal efficiency by moving the citizens from service to self-service, but still with focus on a high level of service to the citizens. With Genvej we wanted a fundamental change in our approach towards citizen service. Services and information should be available 24-7-365, and we wanted to explore the many possibilities that the newest online technology and digitized services had to offer. Since its launch the project has reduced the budget with several million DKK and we have seen a decrease in the number of face-to-face interactions at our citizen service center.

2.1

What can you do in Genvej?

As mentioned above one of the key elements in Genvej is the fact that it knows you. By using advanced web services and multiple database integrations we are able to show the citizens only what i s relevant to them. All access to Genvej is protected behind the common public PKI-system, NemID. Citizens can only access Genvej with their personal NemID and they can only get NemID by showing sufficient ID. Some of the services in Genvej are generic and available to all citizens like access to the local plan for the area where you live, the temperature and water quality of the beach nearest to your home3 , or the ability to report vermin or send a secure email to the municipality or other authorities. But because Genvej draws information from many different services, systems and databases we are able to differentiate which services the citizens can see or use, when they are logged on. Because the system knows your personal information and details you will not be prompted for your social security number, address or family relations etc., when you interact with the services. Once you are securely logged on to the system you can communicate quickly and conveniently with both the municipality and many other public institutions.

The variations as to what you can do in Genvej are many and under constant development, but here are a few examples:

• If you are a Danish citizen you will be able to apply for a new Danish passport online. If you are a foreign citizen this option will not be available to you.

• If you are a homeowner you will be able to order extra bin bags, report uncollected rubbish, read your water meter or view and pay your property tax. If you live in a rented flat you will of course be able to report uncollected rubbish, but since you do not own your home, you do not have to pay property tax, and this service will not feature in your Genvej.

• If you have a child you will be provided with a direct path to information from your child's day-care center, school or school dentist. You can see the weekly activity schedule for your child's day-care center, so you know when a trip to the forest is planned and you have to remember to pack raingear. You can also view photos of your child from the day-care center and write messages to the staff. If you do not have a child, all of this will not be shown in your Genvej.

• When you get your first child or move to the municipality with children, you will get access to our digital day-care allocation. This provides an overview of the day-care provision in the municipality. Using the same principles as online flight booking, you can search for and book available places for your child based on criteria such as start date, distance from your home and opening hours. If you already have a child in day-care the system will know this and offer your next child a place in the same institution.

These examples of relevant personalized digitized citizen services shows how the strategy has penetrated a wide range of the services we offer to the citizens and also the amount of control and insight we have handed over to the citizens. Providing this citizen-centric portal has had implications for three different groups in the municipality.

The politicians and policy-makers are now able to continue their strategy about delivering high quality service to the citizens at a lower cost and at the same time offering the citizens an open and honest insight into the information being collected from them and what it is used for. For the organization/administration that has the responsibility of implementing the policies and strategy, Genvej meant a new way of thinking about the services we deliver to the citizens. What can fit into the portal and how can we make use of this digital infrastructure in a way that presents the citizens with better options then we had before. Finally there are the citizens themselves, the users of Genvej, who has a role to play in the development of the digital services. Presented with a new approach towards services and new selfservice options they must be sure to build awareness and understanding of the relationship between their rights and their obligations. All of this takes time but a consistent focus and dialogue helps to ensure that everyone embraces the possibilities and continue to add further value for both the citizens and municipality.

Going Mobile -having Genvej with you on the Road

After the implementation and first experiences with Genvej on a computer we received a lot of wishes from the public regarding access from their mobile devices.

As smartphones and tablets became widely available in the 21st century, mobility became central. Spurred on by the private sector it was now possible to do almost everything on the go, including shopping, banking, booking tickets, and finding the nearest restaurant. In Gentofte we wanted to embrace the new technology and bring our services closer to the citizens by using these new devices and decided to launch an application (app). The app launched in May 2012 and two years later we have almost 6.000 active installations on mobile devices. The format or mindset of apps motivates the citizens to seek direct communication and quick and easy access to our self-service solutions. In order to successfully implement a mobile version of Genvej we were faced with a number of challenges including content, physical size of the devices and security.

Security

One of our greatest concerns was security. It was vital for us and the success of the app that privacy and security was handled safely given the amount of personal information the app gave access to. On computers we use the common secure login NemID but since this login uses a Java client which does not work on mobile devices we had to find another form of login. The solution was a combination of a username and password along with a unique activation code which you could only get from the computer version of Genvej with your personal NemID.

Content

A lot of the content and solutions in Genvej depended on integrations and web services that worked well on traditional computers and standard browsers but when you tried using them on a mobile device the user experience was very different.

Besides the physical challenge of the screen size and the number of different mobile browsers, we had to redesign a lot of the solutions in order to make them function on mobile devices. This was expensive so we decided to focus on some of the content most suited for mobility and then gradually add more functionality in time.

We focused on our day-care solutions because this was an area that was very popular and at the same time a service that would benefit a lot from being available on the go. With the app parents were able to view the latest diaries, activities and photos from their children's institutions, report illness, arrange play-dates and change the person that collects the child. The functionality was very well received and we continue to develop and implement new features in constant dialog with the day-care institutions and parents. In 2013 we launched a mobile version of our digital day-care allocation service which gave parents the possibility to book a place to their child using a mobile device.

Agile Development

In our experience it is necessary that we keep developing and implementing new features to our mobile solution. The future of technology is moving towards complete mobility and in order to have a fully citizen-centric digitized solution it is crucial that we have a strategy that leads towards implementing a full mobile solution that will ensure that citizens are connected on the go no matter where they are, and that their personal information is kept secure form other potentially praying eyes. To exist on numerous platforms is also important because the old saying of one size fits all does not apply to the ever changing modern technology and lifestyle. As a municipality with a clear digital strategy we are keenly focused on exploiting digital possibilities to provide optimal services and actively involve citizens living in the municipality. It is also important for us that we exist on numerous channels to prevent us from alienating any citizens and ensuring equal access to our services.

Best Practices -what have we learned?

When used properly we have found our digital portal a very effective tool that helps us connect with our citizens and develop a good relationship with them. In order to succeed in providing a citizen-centric platform it is important that the solution delivers real value to the citizens including relevant and personalized services. What follows are a list of some of the most successful practices we have experienced from our work with Genvej.

Know the Citizen

It is absolutely essential that you know and understand the citizens. You are only able to provide the best possible service to the citizens if you have a solid understanding of their needs. This knowledge can be achieved by informal or formal methods. The informal method includes what employees in the municipality, especially in the citizen service center, where we have our self-service area, learn from their day-to-day interactions with the citizens while the formal method is based around interviews and other surveys.

In Genvej the citizens has a feed-back opportunity which they use very often to send us comments on various solutions, submit wishes for new development, or give constructive feed-back. Whether you gain knowledge of citizens by informal or formal ways, engaging the citizen and encouraging dialogue is crucial in learning more about each and every one of them, and what they need in terms of services.

Relevance is also very important. Genvej doesn't just give all citizens access to every service and information available in the municipality. Each citizen is only presented to services that are relevant to him/her. This means that if you are a homeowner you can find your property tax card, and if you are a parent you will be able to access our day-care provision and so on and so forth. In a time where information and commercials are being pushed to the public very aggressive it is essential that municipalities and other government administrations stay focused on their areas and deliver relevant and tight services to the citizens when they need them.

Create Citizen Empowerment via Digital Access

In this day and age the standards and possibilities regarding technology are under constant change, development, and challenge from the commercial world. As a result citizens have grown accustomed to instant access to services and goods with the click of a button. This has created a citizen who no longer wants to stand in line or wait on hold in the phone when they need a service. A digital portal such as Genvej empowers the citizens to take more control over their own lives and needs, satiating the need for immediate response and control over their environment.

Transparency is also very important in this process because digital solutions -when implemented correctly -can deliver a valuable insight to the citizens which they did not have before. Through the use of our digital day-care allocation for example, it is possible to search for a place in real time from the comfort of your home. Earlier you had to contact the municipality who would look for available places within a system you could not access and allocate a place for you. Now you are able to view all available places yourself and can make a choice that suits your needs.

Provide Consistency in Service Delivery

Using Genvej we have become able to provide a constant high level of quality when delivering services to the citizens. With far less chance of human error, consistency of service is far higher. When all the processes are automated and all requests, forms and information are sent electronically, information transfer will be immediate and reply times will be constant with no loss of information during transit.

Increase the Level of Interoperability in Services

With portals like Genvej we are able to increase the interoperability of service delivery to the citizens. When we developed Genvej many self-service solutions were organized as isolated island systems, where the citizens would login and access one or just a few services or information related to one specific service. Then the citizens had to log of this system and login to other systems to do other things. With Genvej we looked beyond this island organization in order to enhance the user experience and the use of digital services by presenting the citizens with all the options even though she/he only entered Genvej to do a single errand.

Using common solutions like NemID with single sign on to other services and integrated web services and databases, the citizens do not have to supply the same basic information more than one time. This reduces costs and enables a lot of basic tasks to be centralized and in time this will help to improve the quality of service experienced by the citizens. The citizens do not have to know which department handles which services. To them it is irrelevant and with the help of digital portals as Genvej, integration between authorities is handled more efficient and convenient. As digitization continues to evolve the need for further interoperability becomes even more essential.

Support long term Sustainability

Perhaps a bit overlooked but we have found that the implementation of digital portals such as Genvej supports long term sustainability. As more efficient services are available online to the citizens, there is no wasteful use of paper and no need of physically transport when you contact the municipality.

Impact on the Surrounding Society

We believe that Genvej contributed to mature the public sector and change the access to a number of services within the welfare society in Denmark because it showed just how quick and convenient online services from the municipality and other Danish authorities can be reached. By developing Genvej the municipality was willing to run a big risk on its own and has ended up with a service that is growing and changing as new technology and self-service solutions evolve. With Genvej we offered our citizens real personalization almost a year and a half before others -for instance "min side" on Borger.dk -and we showed what can be achieved when a digital platform compiles and collates personal and relevant information and services.

If we look at the statistics is it also evident that Genvej offers value to the citizens. From January 1, 2014, until March 1, 2014, we had 7820 different citizens, who used their NemID to logon to the portal. In the same period we had 11.537 citizens, who showed in person at our citizen service center. Moving the citizens from service to self-service is a huge task but with Genvej we believe this transformation is moving in the right direction as the numbers of citizens who use our digital selfservices continue to grow.

Easy and convenient citizen access combined with an organization that is truly costumer focused is the key to successful digitized citizen service. This involves ensuring that citizens have access to the platform on multiple channels, and that they can still get help with and access the services via traditional methods, if they wish to do so. It is also important that both the front-office and the back-office are aware of this strategy and have a deep understanding of the citizens using the platform in order to continue the development and deliver effective digital solutions now and in the future.

The municipality is located very close to the sea.

http://www.gentofte.dk/da/Om-kommunen/Gentofte-i-tal/Statistikkerhttp://www.blboligen.dk/artikelarkiv/2012/oktober/


NEUCC

Per Gjerløv retired from IBM Denmark per@gjerlov.dk Abstract. NEUCC (Northern Europe University Computing Center) was a computing center established at the Technical University of Denmark in 1965 with equipment donated by IBM. The paper describes the negotiations before establishing the center, the installation and the first years of operation. The center became important for the introduction of computers in the Nordic countries, and very many got their first introduction to computing by visiting and using the center.

1

The IBM 7090 Computer

In April 1952 IBM announced the IBM 701 computer as the first commercially available scientific computer. A market of five computers was expected, actually about 20 were sold. Later models were the IBM 704 and IBM 709 and (in 1959) the IBM 7090. The IBM 7090 was a transistorized version of the IBM 709, (originally known as the IBM 709-T). The price was half of the price for the IBM 709, and the performance roughly six times that of the IBM 709. The purchase price for a typical IBM 7090 complete system was around 20 Million DKK, an awful lot of money at that time.

The specifications can be found in the references, but they tell very little to a modern reader. The smallest personal computer or smartphone of today is much more powerful than the IBM 7090. Typically the IBM 7090 did not have hard disks, all data storage and the operating system was on magnetic tape. Significant features were the data channels, separate computer units handling all data input and output under the control of an effective operating system. The computer was able to handle compute heavy batch jobs very efficiently. Further developments of the IBM 7090 were the faster models IBM 7094 and IBM 7094 II. In 1963 IBM announced downscaled cheaper versions, the IBM 7040 and IBM 7044.

The compiler for the Fortran language was developed by John Backus for the IBM 704 computer and became very important for the introduction of the IBM 704 computer and the following models. Fortran is very closely related to the machine code for these computers. The importance of this is that while programs can be written in a notation related to standard mathematical formulas, the resulting machine code for this type of computers is highly efficient. It therefore became possible for many researchers and students to write their own programs for the computers. The usage grew very much, and early in the 1960s probably about 200 IBM 7090 computers were installed and heavily used in North American universities, research institutions and military establishments.

From about 1967 the IBM 7090 family were being replaced by larger models of the new IBM system/360, and other manufacturers' computers came into the market. Sometime early in the 1980's the last IBM 7090 was shut down for the last time.

2

The Project

In the early 1960s IBM 7090 computers were used at universities and research institutions in the USA, but only very few were installed outside USA. A plan was consequently established at IBM in New York to donate ten 7090 computers to universities outside USA, five in Europe and five in other countries. Four of the European computers were going to the major countries, Germany, UK, France and Italy, and the fifth to a smaller country.

IBM Denmark was interested and wanted to install one of the IBM 7090s at Danmarks tekniske Højskole, DTH. It was rejected in New York, this was not a well known school (a "High-school?"). Then Copenhagen University was suggested but that university was not interested -no need for a computer. So next IBM in New York suggested Uppsala University.

In the plan the local company, in this case IBM Sweden, had to purchase the equipment from the factory, and the price was unknown. It might be new equipment, or older, refurbished and much cheaper. IBM Sweden asked for a budget release as a condition, that was rejected and the bidding came back to Denmark, to DTH.

Therefore, late in 1963 serious negotiation started. At that time a plan existed to support Regnecentralen, the Danish Computing Center. Regnecentralen had, as a government supported institution, built the vintage computer DASK, and had constructed and sold a number of the more modern GIER computers. So Regnecentralen was to establish a large development office at the DTH campus with two GIER computers, and spare computer time could be used by the University. The dilemma was obvious: to support a budding Danish industry, or to give a major boost to use of computers in education and research by a donation from a large American company.

There was another problem. The Danish government had rented another large IBM computer, an IBM 7070, for use in census and the source-taxing system. The programs were delayed, and the 7070 computer had lots of spare capacity which could be used by the universities. But the 7070 was unsuited for scientific use, and that plan was dropped. Now followed a time with hectic negotiations. A central person was the CEO of IBM Denmark, Mr. Viggo Troels-Smith. At one point he asked me whether the project would improve our chances for more university contracts, but I had to tell him that there would be a very negative sentiment in some places, and that the donation for sure would have a negative impact. Mr. Troels-Smith just remarked: "OK, we do it anyway". In fact, it was much later decided that other university contracts should be signed, and were signed, with different manufacturers.

In April 1964 IBM announced the new line of computers system/360. We made a special presentation for the Dean and leading professors at the DTH, but recommended that we stuck with the 7090 plan to avoid a yearlong delay. This advice was followed, and it proved to be a very good decision.

The IBM donation was accepted, The use of the computer was free, but the university had to pay for maintenance. IBM would pay the same amount back to a foundation for support of education. The final agreement was signed late in 1964, and the installation project could begin. The center was named NEUCC, Northern Europe University Computing Center. It should be open for universities in the Nordic countries and the Netherlands. The user group became mainly the Danish universities and there were very few, if any, Dutch users.

3

The Installation

After the contract was signed a very hectic time followed. Fortunately nobody told us that we faced an impossible task.

At the DTH the building had to be finished. The computer was to be installed in building 305, which in late 1964 was just a concrete skeleton. On the DTH map it was named Regnecentralen. The building project got a very high priority, and details were planned, such as power supply, raised floor (or rather lowered floor, so that the floor of the computer-room was in level with the adjacent rooms), cooling equipment and a frequency converter to supply a machine designed for 60 Hz power. The frequency converter became a special project. The originally suggested American machine was a very big, very expensive machine, so we ordered a local and much cheaper converter from Thrige in Odense -a decision that proved to be nearly fatal. We had to order the computer boxes and the cables, also a major project. We ordered a complete 1401 computer as a satellite machine, and a lot of punched card equipment as eight card punch machines, a fast sorting machine and other equipment. We had to use a lot of persuasion to shorten delivery times to reach our self imposed deadline of August 1 st , 1965.

In December 1964 IBM sent me on a three week study trip to USA, to visit the IBM research center in Yorktown Heights, university computing centers at UCLA and Stanford and IBM factories. The trip was headed by Jack Blackburn, a senior IBM'er with a vast experience in large computers. Jack was assigned project manager for the donation project, but unfortunately he was suddenly reassigned during this trip and no successor assigned, so after that the project was run without a manager, just with the responsibility of the local companies as IBM Denmark.

We ordered a lot of software on magnetic tape, and as soon as an office was finished in building 305 I moved there to supervise the project.

In May of 1965, the 1401 arrived. Building 305 was still a noisy and dirty building site, so the 1401 was installed temporarily in building 325, cooled by opening the windows, and used for early experiments with Fortran, and for testing of the support input/output routines -punched card to tape and tape to printer. I had no problems with the 1401, it was fully supported by the IBM office.

In June I went to Imperial College in London to get a working copy of the operating system on two magnetic tapes. The donated IBM 7090 at Imperial College was in full operation at that time.

Early in July the 7090 cabinets arrived. Most of the cabinets were of new manufacture, others were refurbished, so at that time we knew what the expense would be for IBM Denmark. It was not small. Late in July we were ready to power up the machine. It was a disaster. We found out that the computer used a huge initial power surge, far above the capacity of the Thrige machine. An engineer from the contractor and I went for a dinner at the Fortunen restaurant to celebrate the failure, and during the dinner we constructed a power relay system for start-up by using pens and napkins supplied by the restaurant, and we also redesigned the drive system. I asked the engineer to order the not very cheap relays first thing in the morning, they solved the problem, and the converter was in use until the 7094 finally was shut down at New Year 1972. Fortunately I was relieved by IBM so I did not have to pay the relays out of my own pocket. Anyway, it was still a major saving compared to the original proposed equipment. The cooling equipment was not finished, so we tried to cool by using large fans and use the outside air. Not entirely successful, but we could keep the computer running for shorter periods for testing.

We had to hire operators and a secretary, and order supplies: punch cards, magnetic tapes, printer paper, furniture etc., and I worked as manager and signed all expenses on behalf of the University. I was moved, by the University, to the manager's office when that was finished. The first users came sneaking in during the last days of July, and by August 1 st we were in full operation. The complete IBM staff was two part time students and myself, and two engineers for installing and maintaining the hardware. We had to get everything working, learn to operate both computers, card punches, card reader and printer, we had to be familiar with the operating system, write the accounting routines and assist the operators and the ever increasing number of users, so I purchased two folding beds and installed them in a storeroom, so we could get a couple of hours sleep every night.

Start of Operation

The center was off to a flying start. Within days we had hundreds of users, and we had to teach operators and get the operation procedures in place. Very soon some rather big jobs showed up, many from researchers' international contacts, so closing time in the evening soon became flexible. Accounting was working from day one, and we made daily and monthly detailed statistics and graphs of the usage. Of course the procedures were complicated, users had to punch cards with their programs and data and instructions to the operating system, cards were collected and processed, magnetic tapes switched between the computers and the final results printed. We had to write programs to identify the outputs. We also had a system for small Fortran programs where punch cards with program statements could be marked with conductive graphite marks for automatic conversion to input to the computer. Users had to be helped and the operators had to be trained. But there was a lot of enthusiasm and we had really very few serious problems. The hardware, the programs and the operating system just worked.

We had to arrange Fortran courses, and I wrote in my spare time a small Fortran textbook for the elementary courses. I worked as manager and with education and user support during the day and as a system programmer during second, and sometimes third shift, with invaluable assistance from the hired students.

Very many projects, both in education and research, were based on programs developed by the users. The most common programming language of course was Fortran, but other languages were frequently tried, e.g. Algol, Cobol and Lisp. From the beginning researchers from the universities received a large number of programs from abroad, and the use of these programs were often base for large research projects.

One major problem was hiring of a center manager. There were very few applicants, such a position did not exist. But eventually the University hired Hans Jørgen Helms, a mathematician working at NATOs scientific office. Helms had a large network and it was a very fortunate choice. He knew nothing of managing a large computing center -nobody did -so we started a crash course in computing and arranged an extensive study trip to major computing centers in USA. Helms was installed in my former small office, and after the training period we swapped offices without much ceremony. More staff was hired and trained.

We were now ready for the official inauguration in October 1965 where K. B. Andersen, the Minister of Education, cut the red tape and declared the center open.

Helms did much for attracting visitors from abroad, and they gave us much inspiration. He arranged summer schools, as the Summer School of Programming Languages in August of 1967. He succeeded in attracting programming language developers from all over the world, representing many developing languages. Of much interest was the new Algol version Algol 68. Kenneth Iverson demonstrated the newly developed interactive version of his APL, "A Programming Language". We had to get a connection using a typewriter terminal to a computer with the right equipment, and a connection was established to the system/360 computer at Bergen University for testing and for use in the lecture hall.

The APL story is a story of its own, to be told at another time. But the terminal connection was also a demonstration of the developing use of computers. The era of batch computing was to be followed by a time of interaction with the computers.

The usage exploded. Users came from Danish universities, and courier services were established from the Niels Bohr Institute and Aarhus University. There were also users from other Nordic countries, mainly Finland.

In 1966 Hans Ole Aagaard was hired. He was a brilliant technician, and he did a very good job in maintaining the system programs and streamlining the operation.

IBM 7094

The usage grew very rapidly, and already early 1967 it was obvious that the 7090 did no longer have sufficient capacity. The computer was running around the clock. At that time the international part of the project was dead, so I convinced the IBM Denmark management that we had to increase the capacity. I got approval to extend the capacity by rebuilding the 7090 to the faster 7094 model. Some cabinets were replaced, and others rebuilt. We had two engineers coming from the IBM factory in Poughkeepsie, USA, to rewire the data-channels. The circuitry at that time was made by wire-wrapping, connecting wires were simply wrapped around contact pins using special tools. During four days the two engineers changed 16.000 connections in the machines. After the change the machines did not work, but it was just three faulty connections that had to be replaced.

Another hitch was that we did not have sufficient floor space or cooling capacity in the machine room. One of the computer cabinets contained a large electric motor and generator to convert the 60 Hz power to 400 Hz power to the other parts of the computer. We decided to move this machine to an external underground room cooled only by using large fans. To do this we had to install some long cables, and I requested permission from the factory for the change and to deliver the cables. The order was delayed and delayed, pending technical assurance from the factory, and I asked several times for the confirmation. Finally I got a telegram promising a reply soon, and I just answered that it was too late. We had purchased cables locally and we had already moved the motor/generator, and the rebuilt computer was in full operation.

An additional 1401 computer was installed and soon we replaced the 1401s with a newer system/360 model 30. IBM Denmark donated a very special box to connect the two computers. It behaved as a magnetic tape unit to both systems, and Hans Ole Aagaard programmed the box so that the jobs were automatically transferred between the computers. To my knowledge this was the only successful use of such a box worldwide. We installed a card reader and a printer attached to the system/360 which the users could use, and the result was that for small jobs the users could often put their cards in the reader and walk to the printer and immediately collect the output. We had a priority system where the computer time had to be estimated by the user. For small jobs with high priority, like education examples, more than 100 jobs were handled per hour. A similar card reader and printer was installed at Øster Voldgade in Copenhagen and connected by cable to the system/360 computer..

6

System/360

Even the 7094 did not have enough capacity, and it was obvious that we had a severe problem. The 7094 was outdated, and world-wide universities were rapidly changing to much more modern equipment. At the same time it was impossible for the University to get money for purchase of new equipment at the necessary scale, as the 7094 worked very well. There was a real risk that the center would be stuck for years with obsolete equipment. I therefore created a new plan. It was impossible to make a new donation, and even that would just give the same problem in a few years. I proposed that IBM Denmark for the first year would donate half of the rental price for modern equipment, and the donation should then be phased out over five years. The plan was approved by IBM Denmark and submitted to New York for approval.

Late in 1967 I got a late afternoon phone call from New York. A number of lawyers were sitting around a table with a "squeak box", and they started by declaring that we had to drop the plan for legal reasons. It was, they stated, in conflict with the monopoly laws. I protested, and after almost an hour with heated arguments I succeeded in convincing the lawyers that I was right, they were wrong and the plan should be permitted.

The final obstacle was top management approval. Late March 1968 I flew to New York with persons from the IBM European headquarter in Paris. We worked for four days preparing flip charts to present the plan to the CEO of IBM World Trade in New York, Mr. Ted Groo. On Friday April 5 at 10.00 we met with Ted Groo. He opened the meeting by telling that Martin Luther King had been shot the day before, there was a fear of major unrest, the company was closing and all staff sent home. We got five minutes to present the plan, it was immediately approved, and I was told not to take a cab but walk quickly to the East Side Air Terminal and take the first bus to the airport and wait for my flight to Copenhagen.

Shortly after the agreement for the system/360 model 75 was signed by Helms and Troels-Smith. The relation between NEUCC and IBM was now an (almost) normal business relation, and the relations were at IBM to be handled by the sales office for government institutions. I left NEUCC and did not come back until after my retirement, then as a user. I never saw the new system/360 installation.

Postscript

In April 2014 IBM held a reception to mark the "50 year anniversary of the mainframe". At that occasion two of the three invited speakers remarked that their introduction to computers were at the NEUCC, well before the general availability of the first IBM system/360 computers. For these persons, as well as for many many others, the work and computer courses at NEUCC became the beginning of a computer career in business, education or science. The creation and start of NEUCC thus became important for the introduction of computer techniques in Denmark and to some extent in the other Nordic countries. The usage and impact on research and education far exceeded the expectations. Also the in-ternational aspect was from the beginning important, access to computers at NEUCC was vital for many international projects. So the original objective, to boost the introduction of computing in higher education, was fully achieved.

It is necessary to remember that the project was only successful because of the enthusiastic support from many persons: University teachers and administration, the NEUCC staff and management and technical specialists from IBM Denmark who supported the creation and start of the center -and of course the very many users. Without this wholehearted support the project would have been impossible. Together we built a solid base for the Universities' use of computers.


Dorte Olesen
email: doole@dtu.dk

UNI•C -a true Internet Pioneer The Danish Computing Centre for Research and Education

In 1985 it was decided to merge the 3 regional computing centers NEUCC, RECKU and RECAU located respectively at the Technical University of Denmark, the University of Copenhagen and the University of Aarhus. The background for the merger was the rapid development of computing equipment which meant that small computers could now be purchased for local use by the university departments whereas the need for high performance computing could only be satisfied by a joint national purchase and advanced network access to this central computer facility. The new center was named UNI-C and succeeded in helping Danish frontline research to use innovative computing techniques and have major breakthroughs using the first massively parallel computer architectures, but the greatest impact of UNI-C on Danish society was the successful early roll out of the Internet to universities with a follow-up of establishing the first Danish Internet service to ordinary PC users. This very first Internet service became a great success and helped to put Denmark on the international map as one of the very early Internet adopters. It also meant that UNI-C was tasked by the Ministry of Education with delivering a number of different groundbreaking services to Danish schools like e.g. the Education Portal EMU, the school intranet SkoleIntra and the single sign on service, Uni-login. The growth of the service portfolio to schools meant that UNI-C stayed with the Ministry of Education when the universities were moved to a separate new ministry, and today UNI-C only delivers services to schools, whereas the service portfolio for universities is now taken care of by the DeIC, the Danish e-Infrastructure Collaboration.

Introduction

In this paper I will give some glimpses from the history of UNI•C, one of the innovative public sector IT-organizations in Denmark where I had the privilege to be the Director General for the years 1989-2011. Giving a full history is not possiblefor that one would need to write a book -so please be aware that this is by no means an attempt to write the entire history of UNI•C. UNI•C still exists today, but is on its way to a name change, having been repositioned into an Agency of IT and Learning under the Ministry of Education with a much more traditional bureaucratic role, quite different from the role it was originally founded for.

The historic role, however, profoundly impacted the speed and effectiveness with which Danish society was able to transform into a true information age society, and so I am happy to have been asked to talk about this at a conference on the History of Nordic Computing. UNI•C was founded in 1985 as the merger of the three regional computing centers located at the three oldest universities in Denmark. The centers were the Northern Europe University Computing Centre NEUCC at the Technical University of Denmark in Lyngby, the "Regionale EDB-center ved Københavns Universitet" RECKU at the University of Copenhagen and the "Regionale EDB-center ved Aarhus Universitet" RECAU at the University of Aarhus. The decision to merge the three centres was taken after extensive preparatory work done by "EDB-Udredningsudvalget" -loosely translated "The Electronic Data Processing Analysis Committee". The committee's report was published in 1983 and it concluded that in order for Denmark to keep abreast with the fast technological development, time had come for Denmark to invest in supercomputing and networking.

At their conception in 1965 as university computing centers, the regional computing centres had been the only places where researchers could do their advanced computations, where economists could do statistics and modelling for the economic development and where the research libraries could build their big databases. 20 years later smaller computers had arrived and could be bought directly by university departments, by the libraries themselves and the Ministry of Finance and other bodies doing statistics and econometric calculations. At the same time, technological development had led to very advanced "supercomputing" architectures. These could offer computational research areas completely new possibilities, and network protocols were progressing that could offer easy and almost instantaneous access to big computers over long distances.

Hence the new landscape for the use of computing in research pointed to the need for a larger national center with unique facilities like high-performance supercomputers and high-performance networks that could give scientists all over Denmark access to advanced computing power both in Denmark and abroad. At the same time, the viewpoint was that not only university employees and students should have such access, but in fact this should be available to everyone who needed it, also in the private sector, and therefore such services should be accessible for everyone who would pay for them. This was also in harmony with the view held by many university professors that the funding for such services should be allocated to the universities and not directly to the national centre, so that university departments were free to buy whatever machine or service they wanted.. Hence a "commercialization" was foreseen for the services offered by the new merger, as was a possible development towards privatization of the new organization, which was given the name "Danmarks EDB-center for forskning og undervisning", or in English "The Danish Computing Centre for Research and Education".

In line with the acronyms created for the older centers, the new center was at birth given the acronym DECFU. However, it soon became apparent that this new acronym did not really resonate with the users and a competition was held which led to the name UNI•C. This name was very much in line with names of other mergers at the time, e.g., UNISYS and Unibank, where the "UNI" stood for the new unified organi-zation created from several old ones -and the "C" in this specific case for Center and "Computing". However in the case of "UNI•C" it also associated to the strong ties that the new center had with the universities, and thirdly when read as a single word, it resonated with "unique", thus giving associations to the fact that the new center was soon to purchase unique facilities like the first supercomputer in Denmark, and give unique network connectivity tools to the users, so that they could reach this unique facility and other large computers from all over the country.

The name "Danmarks EDB-center for forskning og uddannelse" was however kept too, and so the full name of the new institution became "UNI•C, Danmarks EDB-Center for forskning og uddannelse".

2

The Unique Facilities at UNI•C

The Networks

In networking technology the leading country in the 1970s was the United States with its ARPANET network, the first large-scale data network in the world. The ARPANET was established by ARPA (the Advanced Research Projects Agency) in 1969 to connect universities and institutions with ARPA-funded research. In 1973, Norway was the first country outside the US to be connected to the ARPANET, and in 1977, Norway took part in "internetting" demonstrations in which three networksthe ARPANET, the SATNET and the Packet Radio Net (PRNET) -were interconnected and the TCP protocol was tested. Since this network could only be used by a few Norwegian users, the successful experiment led to pressure for getting a national research network and eventually UNINETT was formed in 1976. In Denmark, the big networking project of the 1970s was to connect the 3 regional computer centers. The project was called "Centernet" and ran through the years 1977-83. Especially RECAU was very active in this project and also established a campus-wide packetswitching network in 1972 with more than 200 terminals. There seems little doubt that the Centernet project made a substantial contribution to research in the field of data net-working in Denmark. However the real breakthrough for the users came in 1988, when the new nationwide Ethernet network DENET went into operation, materializing as the Danish arm of the new Nordic University Network NORDUnet -a truly impressive international multi-protocol net-work realized in cooperation between the five Nordic countries.

At the time of the "birth" of DENET, Denmark, like the rest of the Europe, was on the OSI track, hoping to define a European network protocol that would be better and more secure than the American Internet protocol TCP/IP. Such a European protocol could of course also mean new opportunities for European industry. So when the Nordic Council of Ministers in 1985 decided to invest in a Nordic University Network Development Programme, NORDUNET, the clear intention was to build on the 7layer OSI model. But even with the extensive networking expertise present in both Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Norway, it was after a long fruitless period of work decided to change the strategy for the Nordic Network and create a multi-protocol network supporting 4 protocols, including TCP/IP. of customers far outnumbered our expectations. A number of professionals eagerly seized the opportunity of getting such a service, and reporters both at Computerworld and leading Danish daily newspapers became interested in the perspectives of this new communication channel, and the number of newspaper articles about the Internet exploded. To have such keen and positive interest in the new service and the many new perspectives it opened was quite an experience. It also meant that in the following years, even though UNI•C was a very popular workplace at that time, we actually ended up for a while removing our employees' phone numbers from our website, since they were continuously being disturbed by headhunters during work-hours.

Already in 1991, Denmark had become one of the first countries outside the US to establish a Computer Emergency Response Team -a CERT -called DK•CERTthat helped the universities protect their networks and data. DK•CERT and its close collaboration with CERTs (or CSIRTS) all over the world was a big step forward in the prevention, warning or quick repair of damage from all sorts of cyber-attacks. This service and the security expertise at UNI•C proved tremendously useful for Danish society in the rapid development of the Internet.

When the teleliberalization brought foreign tele-companies (Telcos) into Denmark, the ISP (In-ternet Service Provider) activity at UNI•C had grown to a size that necessitated new substantial investments in international bandwidth. It was difficult for a state company like UNI•C to make such investments at a time when the business model would change and Telcos become competitors rather than suppliers to the service. UNI•C then decided to sell the ISP activity, and in fact all new Telcos bid for the business. It was sold in 1997 with a nice profit for the Danish government, and existed as Uni2 until 2007, most of the time as a daughter company of Tele2.

Supercomputers

The new institution UNI•C almost immediately embarked on the road to the unique facilities and in 1987 acquired the first supercomputer, an Amdahl/Fujitsu Vector Processor with Japanese roots -so a truly international machine, one may say. Supercomputing at UNI•C had an exciting time in the early years after the purchase of the Amdahl/Fujitsu system. This supercomputer from 1987 was used by several groups all over Den-mark, however the most exciting very early development was perhaps that a really high-qualified group of numerical analysts gathered around the machine at UNI•C, helping users to optimize their codes and improve their algorithms. This led to groundbreaking results in scientific computing, and the training of a number of exceptionally good PhD-students who helped put Denmark on the world map in scientific computing in spite of the low financial investments put into this expensive front-line research.

In 1991, the Danish Research Councils co-fonded a new "Center for Applied Parallel Computing, CAP", with the aim of getting a massively parallel computer for research in a few selected areas where researchers saw immense possibilities in this special architecture that first came on the market in 1987. A special plea for the pur-chase of such a system came from one of the frontline research groups at the Laboratory for Technical Physics at DTU. They suggested that a massively parallel supercomputer from the company Thinking Machines should be purchased, since they beleived that with this new architecture, they would be able to do atomic scale surface simulations that no one had been able to do before. This "Connection Machine" was not exceedingly expensive, so it gave an opportunity for a small country like Denmark to get an advanced computer, which did in fact help this group and a few other groups to achieve some truly remarkable results. Some of these even made it to the front page of the magazine Nature. After that, the DTU group was offered free computer capacity from big computer vendors in Japan, so Denmark got much more value for money than what we actually paid for the machine. And more importantly, the research done on surface physics at DTU became world leading and also gave new opportunities for Danish industry.

The supercomputing activities at UNI•C were not solely focused on buying and running hard-ware, as mentioned before there was also a very good group of experts supporting new users, optimizing algorithms and co-advising PhD-students together with leading university professors. Today some of those students have very prestigious positions in Denmark and at famous universities abroad, but it did unfortunately also give rise to some jealousy from university departments, even though many departments were happy to get the support from UNI•C.

So when the Ministry after more than 10 years of intense activity in supercomputing decided to reduce the funding for supercomputing with 50%, with the argument being that the original mission had been accomplished and normal computers now had the sufficient capacity for most scientists, the outcome was that support and purchase of high performance computer equipment became de-centralized, and the small group of experts at UNI-C dissolved. The Connection Machine CM-200 at UNI•C was not quite as big as this picturein fact we only had a single cube, not 8 of them as shown here -but it served its purpose none the less. And the Disc Storage was as "bar"-like as shown here. In fact, the design side of the Connection Machines was special, as was their architecture.

3

Computers in Education

The Electronic Classroom

The Computer Centre at the University of Aarhus, RECAU, started in the early 1980s to focus on the use of computers in education. At UNI•C these activities were continued in two rather different areas:

─ "The Electronic Classroom" focusing on distance-learning with electronic communication be-tween teacher and students. ─ "Multimedia learning materials" using the new digital opportunities for having sound, film se-quences and many more pictures than in books plus more interactive learning styles .

"Electronic classrooms" were established at several universities, especially for continuing education, but also, e.g., for business school degrees to adults who were in job. But also other organizations saw the usefulness of electronic classrooms. One example was "Teknisk Landsforbund" which created an impressive and successful continuing education activity for technical assistants, teaching them to use the program AutoCAD. The "Electronic Classroom" was based on the Swedish software PortaCOM, a commercialized development of the original KOM-system, a datacon-ferencing system developed by the Swedish computer scientist Jacob Palme.

3.2

SkoDa, SkoleKom, Sektornet and SkoleIntra

In the late 1980s, newspaper databases like PolInfo and databases on social studies and other sub-jects became of interest to Danish schools, but the interfaces were all different and the price of access was high for schools at all levels. This led to the Ministry of Education taking an initiative to create a joint interface and joint purchase of access for all Danish schools, and in 1997 the Ministry asked UNI•C to operate and further develop this service. Over the years it became a big success, it actually grew to have 2100 schools as paying customers. It still exists as "Skolernes Databaseservice" or "SkoDa".

Another service that emerged from the Ministry of Education was SkoleKom, a mail and conference system based on the same technical platform as "The Electronic Classroom", PortaCOM. At the peak, it had 350.000 active users, nowadays probably around 200.000. UNI•C took over SkoleKom as well as the network for schools, Sektornet, in 1997 -right after the sale of Uni2 to Tele2 mentioned above in the networks section. Already in the early 1990s the Ministry of Education started planning a secure network for all schools in Denmark, the Sektornet. In 1997 Sektornet moved to UNI•C after UNI•C sold its commercial ISP service to Tele2.

With almost all public schools being connected by Sektornet and almost all Danes connected at home at the end of the 1990s, the foundation was laid for teachers to communicate electronically with parents as well as with each other and with the pupils, also after school hours.

Two schoolteachers from Southern Jutland were among the first to develop a system for this and they established a partnership with UNI•C for efficient operation and support. This revolutionized communication between teachers and parents and has influenced school administration as well, making interaction between home and school really easy as compared to the days where all messages had to be carried home on paper deep down in the schoolbag and sometimes took a long time reappearing ...

With more than 1 million users of SkoleIntra, UNI•C here succeeded in creating a unique knowledge sharing and communications platform for the Danish school system.

3.3

The Educational Portal EMU

The first Educational Portal was launched by UNI•C in 1997 and was at the planning stage first intended as an Electronic Market Universe, where schools could buy digital learning materials. The name Electronic Market Universe gave rise to the acronym EMU. It soon became clear that time was not ripe for such a market place, and focus was changed to create a portal where teachers and students could find a lot of relevant information. However the acronym EMU was kept, even though some thought it a bit odd to have a portal with the same name as an Australian bird which cannot fly. This portal and its different universes for both very young, young and older students as well as teachers became very popular. For a long time it was on the top20 list for Danish portals. It even got its own mascot, inspired by the name "EMU" -the Australian bird which stays on the ground but runs exceedingly fast.

The EMU mascot became very popular with schoolchildren and even participated in the Galathea3 expedition 2006-2007. During this expedition, an enthusiastic school teacher even made costumes for the EMU, for example for the "EMU over board" drill or diving expeditions, and it made headlines in the newspaper Jyllandsposten -I believe you can say it somehow embodied the enthusiasm with which many Danish schoolteachers and children adopted the new digital era in the two decades 1990-2010. Following the EMU on Galathea3 of course also gave a lot of information about the expedition and its scientific results and the methods used. Together with SkoleIntra, it made the pioneering organization UNI•C known to millions of Danesnotably parents, teachers and schoolchildren.

Fig. 2 .

 2 Fig. 2. A Connection Machine CM-200 with disk"bar". The UNI•C CM-200 only had one cube, not 8 as depicted here.

  Fig.3