Port Said
Port Said ( , , ) is a port city that lies in the northeast Egypt extending about along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, straddling the west bank of the northern mouth of the Suez Canal. The city is the capital city, capital of the Port S ...
, 21 January 1940) is mainly known for his career at the
Union of International Associations
The Union of International Associations (UIA) is a non-profit organization, non-profit non-governmental organization, non-governmental research institute and documentation center based in Brussels, Belgium, and operating under United Nations mand ...
(UIA), where he has been Director of Communications and Research, as well as Assistant Secretary-General. He was responsible at the UIA for the development of interlinked databases and for publications based on those databases, mainly the Encyclopedia of World Problems and Human Potential, the Yearbook of International Organizations, and the International Congress Calendar. Judge has also personally authored a collection of over 1,600 documents of relevance to governance and strategy-making. All these papers are freely available on his personal website ''Laetus in Praesens''. Now retired from the UIA, he is continuing his research within the context of an initiative called ''Union of Imaginable Associations''.
Early life
Anthony John Nesbitt (Tony) Judge, an Australian national, was born in Port Said, Egypt, in 1940. His father was a pilot and officer in the Royal Air Force. He was brought up in what was Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), with some schooling in the United Kingdom and Australia. He did chemical engineering at Imperial College (London) and an MBA at the University of Cape Town. He worked at the Union of International Associations between 1961 and 1963, and from 1968 till 2007. He is still living in Belgium, his wife is German, and they have one son.
Career
Anthony Judge's work at the UIA, from the sixties until 2007, involved the adaptation of a wide range of emerging technologies to
data management
Data management comprises all disciplines related to handling data as a valuable resource, it is the practice of managing an organization's data so it can be analyzed for decision making.
Concept
The concept of data management emerged alongsi ...
and
knowledge management
Knowledge management (KM) is the set of procedures for producing, disseminating, utilizing, and overseeing an organization's knowledge and data. It alludes to a multidisciplinary strategy that maximizes knowledge utilization to accomplish organ ...
, such as in-house computers, computer
typesetting
Typesetting is the composition of text for publication, display, or distribution by means of arranging physical ''type'' (or ''sort'') in mechanical systems or '' glyphs'' in digital systems representing '' characters'' (letters and other ...
, email, extension of email access to developing countries,
metadata
Metadata (or metainformation) is "data that provides information about other data", but not the content of the data itself, such as the text of a message or the image itself. There are many distinct types of metadata, including:
* Descriptive ...
structure,
collaborative editing
Collaborative editing is the process of multiple people editing the same document simultaneously. This technique may engage expertise from different disciplines, and potentially improve the quality of documents and increase deals.
Good choices i ...
,
Machine translation
Machine translation is use of computational techniques to translate text or speech from one language to another, including the contextual, idiomatic and pragmatic nuances of both languages.
Early approaches were mostly rule-based or statisti ...
, web technology, VRML, and inter-institutional data integration. A particular focus of his activities was on the possibilities of visualizing networks of organizations, world problems and other sets of data.
His work also involved the production of many research papers relevant to the strategic position of international organizations and the organized response to world problems. He wrote papers for instance on dialogue facilitation, transformative conferencing, information system design, relevance of metaphor for governance and communication, transdisciplinarity, and concepts of human development.
Under Judge's direction the UIA developed the most extensive databases on global
civil society
Civil society can be understood as the "third sector" of society, distinct from government and business, and including the family and the private sphere.UIA Online Databases Publications based on those databases include the Encyclopedia of World Problems and Human Potential, the Yearbook of International Organizations, the International Congress Calendar, and many other.
Judge carried out also consulting and related activities with such institutions as the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR), UNESCO, UN Environment Programme (UNEP), UN University (Tokyo), and the Commonwealth Science Council. One of his continuing research interests has been innovation in international meeting processes, especially in conferences with special problems. He thus played advisory and facilitatory roles in several events such as Inter-Sectoral Dialogue (Rio de Janeiro, 1992), World Futures Studies Conference (Turku, 1993), and Parliament of the World's Religions (Chicago, 1993).
Encyclopedia of World Problems and Human Potential
The ''Encyclopedia of World Problems and Human Potential'', of which Anthony Judge has been the main architect, is a monumental work that came into being thanks to a partnership between the UIA and Mankind 2000. Initiated in 1972, that collaborative project gave rise to a succession of editions of the ''Encyclopedia'' in 1976, 1986, 1990, and 1995, while in 2000 a new edition was made available as a collection of online databases through the UIA website. In 2005, following disagreement over the partnership contract, and as Executive Secretary of Mankind 2000, Judge reframed the ''Encyclopedia'' as having been a strategic initiative of the Union of Intelligible Associations.
Richard Slaughter, in a review article, praised in particular the ''Encyclopedia'' introductory and commentary texts (available online), which were mainly written by Judge himself. Slaughter emphasized that the significance of this work is not its size or the scope of its tens of thousands of references, impressive though these are. It is rather in the nature of what has been attempted. Those numerous accompanying texts, he said, are good enough to be published separately because they contain highly cogent observations on the "global problematique", commentaries on the work of numerous great thinkers from a wide variety of fields, and an impressive array of insights about the epistemology, symbolism, metaphysics, metaphors and linguistic representations of the subject.
Writings
Over the years Judge has produced more than 1,600 papers on information, knowledge organization, and other topics of relevance to governance,
policy
Policy is a deliberate system of guidelines to guide decisions and achieve rational outcomes. A policy is a statement of intent and is implemented as a procedure or protocol. Policies are generally adopted by a governance body within an or ...
and strategy-making. Most of these papers are freely available on his personal website ''Laetus in Praesens'' (translated from Latin: ''Joy in the Present''), where they are listed by themes and dates. Many of them evolve around the quest to create a wiser and more functional world, especially in the perspective of learning from the relative lack of success of past initiatives in view of the dimensions and urgency of challenges. His work has a high level of novelty, for instance innovation in the use of
metaphors
A metaphor is a figure of speech that, for rhetorical effect, directly refers to one thing by mentioning another. It may provide, or obscure, clarity or identify hidden similarities between two different ideas. Metaphors are usually meant to cr ...
,
art
Art is a diverse range of cultural activity centered around ''works'' utilizing creative or imaginative talents, which are expected to evoke a worthwhile experience, generally through an expression of emotional power, conceptual ideas, tec ...
,
poetry
Poetry (from the Greek language, Greek word ''poiesis'', "making") is a form of literature, literary art that uses aesthetics, aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language to evoke meaning (linguistics), meanings in addition to, or in ...
,
debate
Debate is a process that involves formal discourse, discussion, and oral addresses on a particular topic or collection of topics, often with a moderator and an audience. In a debate, arguments are put forward for opposing viewpoints. Historica ...
, data-visualization and system structures. The exploratory interdisciplinary methodology of
futures studies
Futures studies, futures research or futurology is the systematic, interdisciplinary and holistic study of social and technological advancement, and other environmental trends, often for the purpose of exploring how people will live and wor ...
, with which Judge has long been associated, also significantly gives form to his whole, unique, work.
Now retired from the UIA, Anthony Judge is continuing to write within the context of an initiative called ''Union of Imaginable Associations'', and its associated projects.