Charles François is a Belgian citizen, born 1922 and retired from the Belgian Foreign Service since 1987. He was educated in Belgium and lived in Central Africa from 1945 to 1960, first as an administrative officer and later on as owner of his own business. His first contact with Cybernetics was in 1952 through Wiener's foundational 1948 work on Cybernetics.

In 1958 he became a member of the former Society for General Systems Research (Now ISSS). Participant from 1970 on in numerous Meetings of various Systems and Cybernetics Societies, he is also a member of the board of some of them, and integrates the editorial board of various journals on Systems and Cybernetics. Author of numerous papers on systemic topics, he also published in French a book on "Cybernétique et Prospective" (International Association of Cybernetics, Namur, 1976) and an "Introducción a la Prospectiva" in Spanish (Pleamar, Buenos Aires, 1978). In 1985 he published in Spanish his study on "El uso de Modelos Sistémicos-Cibernéticos como metodología científica" (Systemic-Cybernetic Models used as scientific methodology) and in 1986 "Enfoques Sistémicos en el Estudio de las Sociedades" (Systemic Approaches to the Study of Societies).

In 1992, he published his "Diccionario de Teoría Generale de Sistemas y Cibernética" (GESI, Buenos Aires), the first work of its kind in Spanish (475 terms).

François lives in Argentina since 1963 and created the Argentine National Division of the ISSS in 1976, being presently its Honorary President.

Afterthought on beliefs and motives: A personal statement of Charles François >>download pdf-file (7 KB)