Inaugural address. ‘Only connect’

The title suggests both the benefits and the problems of communication and the relationships between communication systems and those who use them. The theme is the role that electrical engineering can play in improving communications and in the optimisation of relations between equipment and people. The profession has made major contributions to increasing man's abilities to communicate. Its technologies have given us a variety of methods of communication for differing purposes and will continue to offer increasing speed and greater quantity. In the future these should not be the only objectives. The ultimate object of communications is to connect people. The aim must be for systems matched to users which meet needs, at desired times, between places of people's choice and at a cost and use of resources which can be afforded. A number of recent advances are described, and ways suggested by which various modes of communication, and combinations of them, could offer increasing scope for a variety of versatile facilities in the future. Development of communication technology will and should continue, and advances will change ways of life. The challenge is to use them in the right way; to use them for personal development rather than becoming passive terminals; and to advance understanding of the possibilities, the dangers of misuse, and the way they can be used for the advancement of man.