American Society for Cybernetics


The American Society for Cybernetics is an American non-profit scholastic organization for the advancement of cybernetics as a science and the interdisciplinary collaboration and synthesis of cybernetics. The society contributes to the cooperation around the research and development of cybernetics methods and techniques to manage complex systems.
In order to do so it holds conferences and seminars, and maintains contacts with cyberneticians and organizations for cybernetics in other countries. Further activities of the ASC are:
The American Society for Cybernetics was founded in 1964 in Washington, DC to encourage new developments in cybernetics as an interdisciplinary field with Warren McCulloch as first elected president of the ASC. In the 1980s ASC became a member of the International Federation for Systems Research, and begin 1990s supported the Principia Cybernetica Project. Since 1995 the home office for the ASC is located at the George Washington University.
The ASC has been maintaining an editorial column in the interdisciplinary Cybernetics and Human Knowing Journal since its first issue in 1992. Rodney Donaldson was the first ASC president to write for the column.

Annual Cybernetics Symposia

First Annual Cybernetics Symposium

The First Annual Cybernetics Symposium of the ASC was held on 26-7 October, 1967 at the National Bureau of Standards, Gaithersburg, Maryland. The theme was "Purposive Systems: The Edge of Knowledge." The following people made presentations:
The "Wiener Medal in Cybernetics" is an annual award by the American Society for Cybernetics in recognition of outstanding achievements or contributions in the field of cybernetics. Since 2005 the award has been redefined to recognize achievements and contributions from younger scholars and researchers working in cybernetics or with applications of cybernetics. Recipients of the Wiener and McCulloch awards: