IFAC celebrated its 60th anniversary at the 20th IFAC World Congress in July 2017, in Toulouse, France, the country where IFAC was founded in 1957. To mark the 60th anniversary, the IFAC 2017 World Congress program emphasized presentations on the history and the future of a number of theoretical and application areas of automatic control. The presentations were structured around two semi-plenary invited history lectures, two panel sessions on the IFAC Story and the History of Automatic Control, five invited history sessions and two invited history open tracks.
IFAC’s success has been the result of 20 triennial terms of important contributions to the conferences and literature in the control field throughout the world. Too little attention has been devoted to documenting how IFAC has contributed to this success. In 2014 I approached IFAC Past President and Advisor Stephen Kahne with a request to prepare a document describing the history of our federation from its founding in 1957. Professor Kahne assembled a team with significant IFAC leadership experience to help write The IFAC Story as an e-book. (ISBN 978-3-902823-73-1)
Below is the summary of actions taken at the 20th IFAC World Congress, Toulouse, France, July 2017 by Luc Dugard (IFAC 2017 WC IPC Vice-Chair) and Dimitri Peaucelle (IFAC 2017 WC General Chair).
Janan Zaytoon
IFAC President for the 2014-2017 triennium
