It is with heavy hearts we receive the news that our former chairman Klaus-Dieter Naujok has passed away. It is clear that, although he had to step down as chairman in 2017 for health reasons, his legacy is still very present and will live on within ISO/TC 154.

Mr Naujok was part of a select group of people that designed and promoted the information exchange standards within the United Nations and ISO, that we now commonly refer to as Electronic Data Interchange, EDI. The impact has been tremendous in trade facilitation and global commerce. But for Mr Naujok this was not enough. His ultimate goal was the implementation of open-EDI. This ISO standard (ISO/IEC 14662:2010) that describes how an open, as opposed to bilaterally agreed, information exchange be achieved has been discussed for a long time but arguably no one has taken more tangible steps towards achieving this. He initiated, then chaired, the ebXML initiative as a joint project between the UN and OASIS, he furthered work in semantic interoperability and invited De Jure and De Facto standards organisations to the table to collaborate.

He sometimes became controversial as an outspoken advocate of these values. These are the true colours of a pioneer and believer. Mr Naujok worked a period for a Californian company called Harbinger. This company no longer exists but we sense that Mr Naujok embraced the name and made it a motto for our technical committee.

Rest in Peace.

Ms. Hongru Zhu, Chair of ISO/TC 154

Mr. Jianfang Zhang, ISO/TC 154 committee manager