Notes on The World Innovation Foundation (WIF)

Note added 20 May 2007 (replacing note of 19th April 2007), revised 30 May 2007:
My WIF Fellowship was temporarily revoked in April 2007, because I raised a question about
whether WIF was a hoax, as suggested by one contributor to a Wikipedia administrative
discussion. By raising the question I hoped to find answers. However the only person who
noticed my question was the chief executive of the WIF, who was not pleased. (However, he
later withdrew his condemnation.)

My (not very extensive) investigations eventually led me to the conclusion that WIF was
not a hoax. Moreover, the unsupportable claim on various web sites that WIF had been
founded by Glen Seaborg in 1992 which had raised suspicions in the minds of some wikipedia
discussants was not made by WIF itself, but by careless press officers in universities,
who compressed two separate facts

(a) that WIF was founded (with a different name) in 1992, and
(b) that Glen Seaborg became its founding President when the name was changed, at his
suggestion, in 1996, shortly before he died.

So, I conclude that WIF is real and serious, and it is not a hoax, but as far as I can
tell, most of its fellows are proud to be elected, but do nothing for WIF, and at this
stage it is not clear to me that WIF is capable of realising its lofty ambitions, and the
extent of its influence is not clear. However the Chief Executive, Dr. David Hill and
others associated with the WIF do give invited addresses at some conferences, though these
do not seem to attract much attention. That conclusion was reached after a short period of
intermittent investigation in the first third of 2007, and may have been based on
insufficient evidence. Even if true at the time, it could prove misleading if the WIF
manages to attract more resources for its work.

For more details see the comments in my 'blogspot' web site.

Maintained by Aaron Sloman