ITHS Committees

Events Committee

Host live conversations with the people who shaped computing, and turn each one into a lasting record.

[email protected] Join our Discord early days
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Collage of Brewster Kahle, Bob Frankston, George Dyson and Randy Katz, each beside an image of his best-known work
Our 2026–27 panel leaders, each beside the work he is best known for: Brewster Kahle, Bob Frankston, George Dyson, and Randy Katz.

2026
Committee

The Events Committee designs and produces live conversations that inform the Society’s curatorial and research priorities, and that give members something to enjoy and newcomers a way to discover ITHS.

These are not generic lectures. They are structured discussions with people whose lived experience and technical authority can help us answer hard questions: what we should preserve, how we should describe it, where key ideas came from, and who has been overlooked.

What the committee does

  • Chooses topics and formats: single-topic Zoom panels of 60 to 90 minutes, built around a headliner and a small group of co-panelists.
  • Recruits panelists whose expertise can guide ITHS decisions, not merely recount history, and frames each event as a shared inquiry.
  • Publicizes each event well in advance, on our own channels and through outreach to computer science departments, universities, enthusiast communities, online forums, and groups that have been under-represented in computing history.
  • Runs production, including audio and video quality, transcription, and a backup for every recording.
  • Turns each recording into lasting material, including clips, quotes, portraits, and a written summary, and shares it with Editorial for the newsletter and social media.

The playbook

How an event comes together

Counted back from the day of the event.

  1. Six to eight weeks out
    Confirm the headliner and the date and time. Draft the title and topic, and start building outreach lists.
  2. The next two weeks
    Secure the co-panelists. Create the event image and the registration page.
  3. Four weeks out
    Open registration and announce the event on our channels. Send the first wave of outreach to departments, partners, enthusiast communities, and events calendars, and invite members to suggest questions.
  4. Three weeks out
    Panelists receive a draft set of questions. Each says which questions they would like to take, and any of them can suggest changes, additions, or cuts. The second wave of outreach and follow-ups goes out.
  5. One week out
    Panelists receive the final question list, and we settle whether the lead panelist will run the questions or someone from ITHS will moderate and keep time. Each panelist gets a short note on camera and microphone setup, and reminders go out on our channels and to academic mailing lists.
  6. Event day
    Final reminders go out, and the recording and its backup are confirmed before the start.
  7. The day after
    Every participant receives an automated thank-you.
  8. A week after
    Participants receive access to the recording, the transcript, or both, where feasible.
  9. The weeks that follow
    Clips, quote cards, and portraits roll out across our channels, and we review what brought people in so the next event does better.

See upcoming events at events.ithistory.org.

Get involved

Email the Events Committee at [email protected]. You can also reach the Society at [email protected], reply to any of our mailings, or contact one of us on LinkedIn.

We are also building a Discord community, still in its early days. This committee meets in #events; if you are new to our server, join it here first.

Email the committee