On 23 October 1969—just a few months after Apollo 11 landed on the moon—the Electronic Data Processing Auditors Association (EDPAA), later to become ISACA, was incorporated. Just six days later, on 29 October 29 1969, the first communications were sent through the ARPANET, the predecessor to the Internet. A coincidence? Perhaps—but ISACA was there.
In 1996, IBM's Deep Blue defeated chess champion Gary Kasparov for the first time, and Windows NT 4.0 was released by Microsoft. In 12 months, the number of Internet host computers went from 1 million to 10 million, and COBIT was released. A coincidence? Perhaps – but ISACA was there.
In 2007, Apple announced the release of the first iPhone. The touch-screen mobile phone originally sold for US$599.00 and, within less than 3 months of its release, more than 1 million units were sold. Twenty percent of the world’s population was now online and COBIT 4.1 was released. A coincidence? Perhaps—but ISACA was there.
In 2012, Windows 8 was released, Facebook went public and COBIT 5 was released. Almost 36% of the world’s population was now online. A coincidence? Perhaps—but ISACA was there.
It is 2019. Almost 57% of the world’s population is now online. ISACA is 50 years old, and COBIT 2019 has just been released. It has been no coincidence that ISACA was around for each of these historic IT-related events—numerous hours were put in by both ISACA staff and volunteers to keep it there. Each of these events helped shaped the thoughts of these ISACA volunteers, who, in turn, helped develop COBIT 2019. Today, COBIT 2019, built upon ISACA’s history, can aid with the governance and management of information and technology in your enterprise.
Read Ian Cooke’s recent Journal article:
“Lessons from History," ISACA Journal, volume 4, 2019.