Peter de Jager

Peter de Jager is a South African-born Canadian computer engineer, best known for his Y2K early 1990s outcry warning, and was the namesake of the ''de Jager Year 2000 index'' that began trading on the American Stock Exchange in 1997.

De Jager co-authored "Countdown Y2K: Business Survival Planning for the Year 2000 and periodically writes for Canada's ''Municipal World'' magazine, focusing on ''Change Management''.

Y2K

From around 1980, as an IBM employee, he internally alerted them to the problem.

In 1993 de Jager wrote a three-page item titled "Doomsday 2000" about the effects of simple date calculations, and "testified before Congress in 1996." His initial estimation of "the cost of fixing Y2K at between $50 billion and $70 billion" was subsequently reported to have been too low: Numbers like "only" $200 Billion to over $300 Billion proved more correct (for world-wide expenditures), with $120 Billion by USA firms.

De Jager registered and built www.year2000.com, a website he later sold.

Part of his "we don't know in advance what will fail, ... so we have to fix everything" message was quoted by ''The New York Times'' in the summer of 1998, which listed examples of cascading effects on "smoke alarms, lighting systems and even thermostats in individual apartments." Fears of elevators that would go up and not come down were reported.

Although de Jager was quoted as not owning "a single share of any year-2000 stock" and that he "never mentioned a vendor from the stage" his year2000.com website had "a list of Y2K consultants and experts;" ''Forbes'' magazine wrote that he "makes money selling advertising on his Y2K web site."

Personal life

De Jager was born in South Africa in 1955.

De Jager and his wife, Antoinette, have two sons.

References

External links

Peter de Jager autobiography, 20 years after Y2K

{{DEFAULTSORT:Jager, Peter de
1955 births
Living people
Canadian computer specialists
South African emigrants to Canada