Welcoming remarks - International Conference on Nuclear Knowledge Management, 7-10 September 2004, Saclay, France

Full text: Ladies and Gentlemen: On behalf of the Government of Canada, the Canadian Nuclear Industry and my company, Atomic Energy of Canada Limited, It gives me great pleasure to welcome you all here at this timely and important International Conference on Nuclear Knowledge Management. I say timely and important because we are at a cross roads today. If we are serious about passing the torch to a new generation, it's time to act now, if we have not done so already. As I speak today, many experts around the world are retiring taking with them a lot of knowledge and corporate memory. I know that first hand as almost 50% of the managers in my department are eligible for retirement today without penalty. Of course I have a succession plan in place and I am sure many of you do, however, it is not just a number game. These people retiring everyday are those that can answer questions very easily. They either know where the information reside and can get it quickly or have the answers in their heads as tacit knowledge that was never extracted from them previously. All companies have significant amount of information in filing systems or on a server somewhere. This information cannot be considered knowledge until we know how to retrieve it and make it available to those who need it. I look forward to a very interesting few days in which we would exchange information and learn from each other. Finally, I wish to thank the IAEA for organizing such an important conference and the French Government and CEA for hosting the conference at Saclay. (author)