busy retiree
Doug Dyment retired in the summer of 2012, returning to British Columbia and the small seaside town of Gibsons. Although continuing to take on occasional speaking engagements, he primarily devotes his time to travelling, writing, and enjoying the pleasures of Canada's spectacular Sunshine Coast. And wondering how he ever found time for a regular job!
public speaker
Since the turn of the millennium, Doug devoted much of his time to public speaking roles. Initially, these efforts involved the development & delivery of programs for a variety of sales engineering training companies, but increasingly he became an in-demand event speaker. Drawing on the same background that informs the immensely popular OneBag.com Web site (serving over 3500 daily visitors, and prompting Time Magazine to dub him the “Go-Light Guru”), he speaks on the topic of “Tackling Today’s Travel: On The Road Without The Load”.
technology evangelist
During the 1990s, Doug focused his communication skills and industry experience on the evangelism of new technologies, largely for startup companies. This activity spanned periods ranging from two to six years, introducing technologies for Echelon Corporation, (distributed control network technology); Ardent Computer Corporation (a new class of computer system combining vector arithmetic & graphics hardware technologies in a unified architecture); CATC, now part of LeCroy (serial protocol tools); and Silicon Energy Corporation, now part of Itron (Web-based enterprise energy management systems). His titles varied, from Director of Technical Marketing to Principal Technology Consultant, but his roles generally encompassed those of technical message developer, corporate spokesman, and technology evangelist.
scientist
In the 1980s, Dr. Dyment was a tenured Full Professor with the Department of Computer Science at the University of Waterloo, occupying the school’s first industry-funded chair: the Canadian Pacific Chair in Computer Applications. His research and teaching specialities included real-time systems, computational architectures, and software engineering. He was a director of the Institute for Computer Research, co-director of the Multiprocessing Systems Group, and Associate Chairman for Undergraduate Studies. He also taught graduate courses as an Adjunct Professor with the University of British Columbia.
consultant
As an independent consultant, Doug specialized in microkernel technology, communication architectures, and real-time system design. Projects included a large geographically distributed computer network (including kernel services, and all related communication software), BCPL compiler, text processing system, software design language, real-time operating systems, and a high speed token-passing ring network. Clients ranged from Advanced Micro Devices and Fairchild Semiconductor to Microtel Pacific Research and Revenue Canada. An Arthur Anderson study (of the multi-computer network) commented, “We were extremely impressed by the sophistication and elegant simplicity of the multiprocessor system ... Nowhere have we seen such advanced and impressive system software implemented so successfully by an end-user.”
engineer
Prior to this, Doug was immersed in a variety of software development roles, most notably as Vice President, Data General Canada, where he managed the three corporate engineering groups (Hardware, Software, and Field Engineering), and was principal architect for several of the company’s software products, including RTOS, the real-time operating system kernel that served as the basis for all subsequent Data General operating systems.
miscellaneous facts
Dr. Dyment has delivered presentations in Australia, Austria, Canada, Denmark, England, Finland, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, México, Netherlands, Peoples Republic of China, Poland, Russia, Scotland, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, United States, and the United Nations. His various professional affiliations have included the ACM, IEEE, National Speakers Association, International Platform Association, Ocean Cruising Club, and Mensa. He chairs the Sunshine Coast Film Society, holds a doctorate in Computer Science, and can still be spotted writing computer code.
contact information
Doug Dyment, Ph.D.
8–728 Gibsons Way
Gibsons, BC V0N 1V9
CANADA