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Cuba Forms a CS Professional Society -- It's No ACM
lpress writes: The formation of the Unión de Informáticos de Cuba (UIC) was announced at a Havana conference and a 7,500 person teleconference (no mean feat in Cuba). My first reaction was "cool — like a Cuban ACM," but there are significant differences between ACM and UIC. For example, one must apply to the Ministry of Communication to be accepted into the UIC and the application form asks about membership in political organizations like the Communist Party or Young Communists League along with technical qualifications. A CS degree is required (sorry Bill Gates). UIC members must be Cuban, while ACM has chapters in 57 nations. ACM has student chapters, but they are less needed in Cuba, which has over 600 youth computer clubs where kids take classes and play games and promising students are tracked and channeled into technical schools.
In case anyone is wondering, the poster is talking about the Academy of Country Music. Wikipedia says:
The Academy of Country Music (ACM) was founded in 1964 in Los Angeles, California as the Country & Western Music Academy. Among those involved in the founding was Eddie Miller and Tommy Wiggins, who joined Mickey Christensen and Chris Christensen. They wanted to promote country music in the western 13 states with the support of artist based on the West Coast. Artist such as Johnny Bond, Glen Campbell, Merle Haggard, Roger Mill, and many more influenced them. The ball finally started rolling in 1965 when a board of directors was formed to govern the Academy.
Shock horror! You don't become a member just by putting MUIC on your business cards! I bet that you don't get admitted to the ACM without applying either.
If the submitter (presumably the author of the blog from the second link) had actually read the two-week-old comments in the first linked page then they would see that this isn't true. A CS degree is sufficient, but not necessary: the statutes clearly say that membership is open to professionals in other areas "with experience in support activities for the IT sector". So basically that's about the same as e.g. the venerable British Computer Society.
I don't see any nationality requirements in the statutes. It just seems to be a standard national professional body. And it hasn't even formally come into existence yet, so how would it have tentacles spread across the globe?
The only thing which seems to be both accurate and potentially upsetting to some people is the political side: that the application form asks about membership of political organisations, and one of its objectives relates to defending the Revolution. But that's completely unsurprising to anyone who knows anything at all about Cuban society, and it's a bit rich that someone from a country which propagandises primary school children by making them recite a Pledge of Allegiance every day (have you seen George Takei talk on the Daily Show about having to do this in an internment camp for Japanese Americans?) should complain about it.
(If I've just fed a troll, then I apologise to the Internet at large).