OBITUARY
Georges ALFF (1946 – 2022)
Francis Massen with the
help Roger Meyrath (PDF version)
Georges
passed away on the 11th of May 2022, after a 7-year-long struggle
for life. He was not only a good friend, a contributor to the Computarium and
to meteoLCD, but also one of the small group of
Georges
had a very busy professional life, so the following lines give just a glimpse
into his work.
After
his secondary studies at the Lycée Classique d'Echternach (
The
LTAM was the first
Several
lycées now began extra-curriculum courses for their students (as I did from
1974 on with BASIC programming at the LCD). But all these endeavours grew
somewhat chaotically, and there was a dire need to put them into a structured
countrywide ensemble. A national commission for the computing curriculum named CNPI
(Commission Nationale pour les Programmes d'Informatique) was created in 1982,
and Georges was one of the first members. Together with Roger Meyrath and
others he started teaching in computing, mostly an introduction in algorithmics
and BASIC programming, using the VICTOR computers of the Centre Universitaire
(which was the university-level precursor of the much later created Université
de Luxembourg).
In
1983 a couple of lycées were equipped with one or two BBC microcomputers, and
shortly after this received up to a dozen BBC model B microcomputers to start in
1985 full-class computing teaching. The decision-making for the BBC
microcomputers was strenuous, but at the time these microcomputers had
successfully worked in the
1985
was the year where the "Nouvelles Technologies de l'Information"
(NTI) were officially introduced in the curricula, and Georges became the
president of the CNPI, the group who defined the computing curricula. Georges
remained president up to 1994.
In
1986 the Ministry of Education decided to invest 6 million LUF into the
computing equipment of the lycées, and Georges was mandated to manage that
money. For a short time, the ancillary equipment and the consumables were
distributed by the Centre Universitaire (Jean-Claude Asselborn, Fernand Reinig),
but shortly after, Georges became the manager of this equipment. He had a
bureau at the LTAM, with a large number of cabinets where software, disks and
much ancillary equipment was stored. I remember with great pleasure many visits
I made there, often together with my colleague Jean Mootz. Sure, we always had
wishes, but Georges as a conscious administrator needed good persuasive
arguments before we could leave with Eproms, floppy drives and disks, cables,
software or other equipment to keep our computing material in shape. Georges
was a man with a very dry humour, and he clearly saw through our
"diplomacy" to receive what we thought was an absolute necessity, but
what could sometimes be seen as "nice to have".
The
following years, and especially the end of the 80s, the 90s and the start of
the 20s see Georges tackling an ever-increasing number of tasks, many of them
considered today as a full man's job.
In
1987 Georges is given the task by Minister Fernand Boden to supervise and
coordinate the introduction of new technologies (i.e. computing) in all
secondary schools, and to prepare the launch of RESTENA, the computing network
of the National Education. RESTENA means RESeau Téléinformatique de l'Éducation
NAtionale) and was planned as an overarching structure coordinating network
facilities and interconnection of all educational computers and/or networks, as
well as hosting common web servers. Later on, RESTENA became the official
manager of the Internet domain .LU, of many international high-speed research
nets and the host of many official research computer nets. RESTENA became
operational in the spring of 1990, when an international colloquy on computing
in schools was organised in
At
each secondary school, a teacher had to be found to become the local computing
manager, called "correspondant informatique". Georges became
president of that group, which had 22 members in 1991. I was one of these, and
have good memories from the multiple meetings, where often really nasty
practical problems had to be solved; coming to a consensus demanded clever
psychology and diplomacy, and Georges in his calm manner was usually able to
guide the sometimes furious and flamboyant debates to a working solution.
At
the beginning of 1990, Georges was involved in the creation of a computer
science section at the LTAM in the division of technician training.
In
1990 he is nominated director of the agency EUROTECNET-Luxembourg, which was responsible
for promoting technological innovation in vocational, initial and continuing
training in order to integrate a European dimension into the corresponding
curricula. At that time he had to manage computing budgets of all the
Meanwhile
the Ministry of Education had received its own administrative computer systems,
and Georges was named director of the IT department in 1995. One of his jobs
was to bridge the computing work at the ministry with the CIE ("Centre
Informatique de l'État"), which was the overarching computing structure of
the Luxembourg government and it's administrations (the legal structure of the
CIE was set up in 1974).
Just
to show the volume of equipment which was introduced during Georges' schedule,
look at these numbers that correspond to the time span 1982-2011: more than
20000 computers + miscellaneous material as servers, beamers, printers,
plotters, switches, routers, etc. were bought and installed. The large scale buying
was defined by public tenders, which later on had to be launched EU-wide and
demanded strict adherence to legal rules. Paul Seiwerath, the head of the Ministry of Education's financial
department, usually managed the opening of these tenders in an open session. Georges was the "chief" of a small group
of people who defined these tenders, wrote the "cahier des charges"
(specifications) and chose among the bidders. Roger Meyrath and I were members,
and here also, Georges had a difficult job to separate the good from the chaff,
as normally many companies were eager to make an offer, but not all could be
relied on for subsequent maintenance or warranty.
As
for RESTENA, which status changed into a foundation, Georges was vice-president
of the board of administrators from 2000 to 2010, and president of that board
from 2010 to 2015.
Sadly,
I have to conclude this obituary with the years 2015 to 2022, which put a
terrible burden on Georges and his family. Georges was struck down by an
aneurysm in 2015, which his normal practitioner did not see developing, despite
Georges' frequent complains on chest pain. He was carried in a life-threatening
state to the hospital, where the cardiac surgeons worked nearly 10 hours to
keeping him alive. But alas, due to this, he had a near-fatal brain stroke. A
year-long rehab was more or less effective, as Georges was again able to walk.
Talking had improved, and he remained interested and curious. But again the
fate was against him. After a stay in the hospital for a banality, he fell and suffered
a fractured pelvis. The consequence of that new operation was fatal: the side
effects of his first stroke became more and more serious, and Georges could not
leave his wheelchair anymore. His family, especially his wife Jeanny, his
daughter Diane and his son Tom cared lovingly for him, and were aided by
several caring organisations. Sadly, his body could not manage all these
increasing health problems anymore, and he passed away Wednesday, on the 11th
of May 2022.
Georges
will be remembered by many friends. Without his help, our meteorological
station (https://meteo.lcd.lu) would not
have been able to continue the difficult atmospheric gas measurements for many
years. As for the Computarium (https://computarium.lcd.lu)
Georges was not only a contributor, but a big help allowing us to continue that
endeavour. Mostly of all, he was an excellent, reliable friend for many, many
years, and we all miss him deeply. I hope that his family will find some consolation
in sharing the grief with his many comrades, friends and former collaborators!
2004,
from left to right: Georges Alff (+), Jean Mootz (+), Roger Meyrath
2005, from left to right: Nico Beckerich,
Georges Alff (+),
Jean-Claude Asselborn (+), Jean Mootz (+)
___________________________________________________________________
History:
version 1.6, updated the 10th
June 2022