György Szántó

After graduating from university, he started working at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences' Computer Science and Automation Research Institute (SZTAKI) in 1973. This was his only uninterrupted job until his retirement (2013), but even as a retiree, he continues to work there on a daily basis.

At first he worked mainly as a hardware developer, designing peripheral interfaces, computer components and graphic display control units. In 1979 he spent half a year as a visiting researcher at the Catholic University of Nijmegen (Netherlands) - partly in preparation for obtaining a PhD degree. After that, however, he subordinated his individual scientific progress to representing the interests of the community that included him. He played a decisive role in the design, production and marketing of several elements of the multiprocessor GD80 graphic display family.

One of the most important tasks of his professional career was to manage the implementation of the radar simulator training system created at Ferihegy Airport, and then to support its expansion and operation. The simulator was one of the top systems of the domestic IT developments of the 1980s, which served to train Hungarian and Austrian air traffic controllers for 10 years.

As an IT expert, he contributed to the review and preparation of the reorganization of the IT systems of large institutions such as the Mechanical Measuring Instruments Factory (MMG), the National Health Insurance Fund (OEP), several county Health Funds, the Ambulance Hospital, or the Paks Nuclear Power Plant.
To support the widespread dissemination of open systems, he founded the Open System Training Center at SZTAKI, where courses were held for numerous domestic institutions, and on behalf of UNIDO, the training of the staff of the Brazilian SENAI training center was also conducted here.

Since 2000, he has primarily initiated developments aimed at promoting the wider application of IT. Based on an agreement with IBM's Global Procurement Support department, he established and managed the Java Beans component development group at SZTAKI.

He participated as an expert in several domestic projects to support the spread of healthcare IT standards, including the preparation of the software development of the smart electronic card-based eTAJ health fund system. He also assisted in the connection and unification of Hungarian and European healthcare data standards in two major international projects within the EU's Sixth Framework Programme for Research.

In the 2010s, his activities turned to new areas. From then on, his most important topics were the creation of electronic educational solutions (e-Learning), the development of web and mobile-based applications - to achieve and support tourism, cultural, educational and research goals.