John Gage

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For the character from Emergency!, see John Gage (Emergency!).

John Gage

John Burdette Gage (born 1942), is one of the original employees of Sun Microsystems; in 1982 he joined Vinod Khosla, Scott McNealy, Bill Joy, Andy Bechtolsheim, and fifteen others to found Sun. Today he serves as Chief Researcher and Vice President of the Science Office for Sun.

1 Career
2 Projects
3 Memberships
4 External links
- 4.1 Interviews
- 4.2 Publications

[edit] Career

Gage attended the University of California, Berkeley, the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, and the Harvard Business School . He did doctoral work in mathematics and economics at the University of California, Berkeley.

Gage worked at Berkeley with Bill Joy, the person largely responsible for the authorship of Berkeley UNIX, also known as BSD, from which springs many modern forms of UNIX, including Solaris, FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD.

Gage left Berkeley in 1982 with Joy to found Sun Microsystems. He is currently the Chief Researcher and Director of the Science Office at Sun.

In 1984, Gage coined the phrase "The Network is the Computer" to describe the emerging world of distributed computing; dismissed at the time by the computer industry, this phrase came to symbolize the explosion of network-based computer services as the Internet became increasingly available.

He is responsible for Sun's relationships with world scientific and technical organizations, for international public policy and governmental relations in the areas of scientific and technical policy, and for alliances with the world's leading research institutions.

In 1968, Gage was a delegate for Robert Kennedy to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, representing Berkeley and Alameda County, California. He co-chaired the Robert Kennedy campaign in Alameda County.

In 1969, Gage co-chaired the Vietnam Moratorium in New England; he was a prime organizer of the Vietnam Moratorium demonstrations in Washington, DC. He became a member of Nixon's Enemy's List in 1971.

[edit] Projects

In 1995, Gage created NetDay , a volunteer project to contribute the resources of world high-technology companies to schools, libraries and clinics world-wide to connect them to the Internet. Since then over 500,000 volunteers have wired over 50,000 schools and libraries in the United States. NetDays have occurred in over thirty countries. Gage is on the board of NetDay and Schools Online, a non-profit organization dedicated to connecting the world one school at a time.

In 1998, Gage was awarded the ACM Presidential Award by Robert Kahn, the President of the ACM for his work on NetDay. In 1999 he received the Smithsonian Institute Leadership Award.

In 1999, President Clinton appointed Gage to the Web-Based Education Commission, which issued its report in December, 2000.

In 2002, Gage taught "Technology, Media, and Governance" at the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, where he was one of five distinguished Teaching Fellows.

In April, 2002, Gage joined the Markle Taskforce on National Security in the Information Age, whose two reports explore how federal, state and local governments collect, analyze and use information as it relates to national security and homeland defense. Their two reports, when joined with the reports of the 9/11 Commission and the WMD Commission Report, formed the foundation for the 2004-2005 reforms of the intelligence and homeland security communities.

The next Markle Report on National Security and Homeland Defense is due in Spring, 2006.

In 2005, Gage joined the United States National Academy of Science Committee on Scientific Communication and National Security ( CSCANS), formed to address the conduct and oversight of science in a time of perceived increase in threats to national security.

Gage hosts Sun's "Digital Journey" - an ongoing series of television and Web-based multimedia programs analyzing new and emerging technologies.

[edit] Memberships

He is a member of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).

Gage serves on the Board of Advisors for the Graduate School of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley, the Dean's Board of Advisors at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, and the Board of Governors of the Pardee Rand Graduate School.

He is a member of the International Advisory Panel for the Malaysian Multimedia Super Corridor.

Gage is a member of the Board of Advisors for the George Lucas Educational Foundation in Marin County, California.

Gage is an advisor to the United Nations Information and Communications Technology Task Force.

He is a former member of the Board of Trustees of the Internet Society (ISOC), the Board of Regents of the United States National Library of Medicine, the Board of Trustees of Fermi National Laboratory, and the External Advisory Council for the World Bank.

Gage has served on scientific advisory panels for the United States National Research Council, the United States National Academy of Sciences,

Gage lives in Berkeley with his wife Linda, and has two children, Peter and Kate.