Ron Warren, the chairman of NuQ (Proprietary) Limited, was awarded the Computer Society of South Africa (CSSA) Computing SA Fellowship Award at a banquet on 25th October 2006. This is the second award Ron has received from the Computer Society, the first being the Computer Personality of the Year in 1992.

To qualify for this prestigious award, one must have been a member of the professional body of the Computer Society of SA for at least 10 years; must have demonstrated a long-term commitment to the objectives of the Computer Society of SA; must have been (and still be) a role model and mentor, showing dedication to the advancement of the ICT industry in SA; and one must be recognised as having made an exceptional, career-length contribution to the SA ICT industry.

In his acceptance speech, Ron gave a brief summary of his early days in the computer industry, which started in 1958. While working for Consolidated Textile Mills, he was responsible for the replacement of mechanical tabulating equipment with a 1201 HEC (Hollerith Electronic Computer). This was one of the earliest commercial computers in the world, and utilised valves (also known as cathode ray tubes) the size of small light bulbs for processing. The memory mechanism was a rotating magnetic drum, with a total capacity of approximately 4000 bits (not bytes those had not even been invented back then!).

In 1958 he attended the second computer programming course ever held in South Africa, and ended up personally programming the computer at Consolidated Textiles to handle the payroll, invoicing, the general ledger and fixed asset accounting. This was the start of a lifelong love-affair with technology that continues to this day.

Combining business acumen and technology know-how, Ron struck out on his own in 1960, starting a computer service bureau operating in Durban using a HEC 1202 computer, similar to the HEC 1201 but with a slightly larger magnetic drum. The majority of the work done on this computer consisted of payrolls and debtors statements, with a number of other periodic jobs such as share registrations and dividend payments, and analysing the results of surveys.

In 1964 the bureau was sold to ICL, and Ron joined that companys bureau in Johannesburg as technical director, whilst his business partner-to-be, Des Gers, was the managing director. This was the start of an association between the two which lasted until the last decade of that century.

In 1967 Ron and Des started their own computer consultancy. It was here that the seeds for the development of a revolutionary computer payroll system came to fruition, where the system could be customised to individual users requirements by means of filling in parameters, without the necessity for program changes. Thus was born Qpac, the first commercial computer system to make use of parameters, which is, of course, standard practice today.

Qpac was a success in South Africa, and was exported to the UK and USA as well as surrounding African countries. Ron was involved in the technical changes required to comply with the statutory changes in those countries. He acquired an unparalleled depth of knowledge about taxation in the various countries, as well as the cultural differences in payroll administration.

In 1980, the rights to Qpac world-wide (other than Africa south of the equator) were sold to Management Science America, at the time the largest payroll company in the USA. Ron joined them for some time to hand over the system and train their staff, and was responsible for specifying the statutory changes to be made for the system for use in Australia.

After that, Ron concentrated on the South African version of the system, which was by then used by a large number of major South African companies. In 1985, Q Packaged Programs merged with Data Trust to form Q Data Limited, which was listed on the JSE. Whilst with Q Data, Ron personally developed the QED PC based payroll system, which was successfully exported to Australia and Papua New Guinea.

Just before Ron retired from Q Data in 1997, the year 2000 craze was beginning to sweep the world, and plans were being made for converting computer systems to handle the century date problem. To the amazement of his colleagues, Ron told them there was no necessity to make plans for Qpac, as it had always catered for the century in its programs. This was regarded as a shining example of the thought and confidence that had gone into the design of the system some 30 years earlier. In his acceptance speech at the CSSA banquet, Ron explained the real reason for this forethought. In the 1970s when Qpac started, pension payrolls were being run with employees who had been born in the previous century, so it was imperative to include the century!

Ron retired from Q Data at the age of 65, and started a pay and tax consulting service called Pay Squad with Nafeesa Sabdia, a long time colleague at Q Data. At the turn of the century, and disappointed to note that the available payroll systems had not kept pace over the years with the incredible advances that were being made in computer technology, including the internet, they teamed up with some technical boffins and developed a new web-based payroll system, nuQ, using the latest computer technology.

Ron used all the knowledge he had gained over the preceding decades around the world, and nuQ was designed from the start to handle multiple tax authorities, with the aim of eventually being used as a payroll system for the world. All the knowledge gained from his payroll experiences around the world was used in designing the commercial side of the system, whilst his technical partners ensured that the latest technology was used to take advantage of the latest developments, of the internet, and of modern techniques and methodologies.

Today, nuQ is used by organisations with the most complex payroll requirements, as well as by small users who merely want a payroll that uses the Windows features they are used to. The nuQ product is truly living up to its design objectives, and is another dream come true for Ron Warren!

Ron is often asked when he will really retire. His answer is when my dreams stop coming true!