Vint Cerf

Vinton Cerf

Vint Cerf in Bangalore, February 2007.
Born June 23, 1943 (1943-06-23) (age 67)
New Haven, Connecticut
Residence USA
Citizenship United States of America
Fields Computer science
Institutions IBM,[1] UCLA,[1] Stanford University,[1] DARPA,[1] MCI,[1][2] CNRI,[1] Google[3]
Known for TCP/IP
Internet Society
Notable awards National Medal of Technology
Presidential Medal of Freedom
Turing Award

Vinton Gray "Vint" Cerf[1] ( /ˈsɜrf/; born June 23, 1943) is an American computer scientist who is the "person most often called the father of the Internet".[2][4] [5] His contributions have been recognized repeatedly, with honorary degrees, and awards that include the National Medal of Technology,[1] the Turing Award,[6] the Presidential Medal of Freedom,[7] and membership in the National Academy of Engineering.

In the early days, Cerf was a program manager for the United States Department of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) funding various groups to develop TCP/IP technology. When the Internet began to transition to a commercial opportunity during the late 1980s,[8] Cerf moved to MCI where he was instrumental in the development of the first commercial email system (MCI Mail) connected to the Internet.

Vinton Cerf was instrumental in the funding and formation of ICANN from the start. Cerf waited in the wings for a year before he stepped forward to join the ICANN Board. Eventually he became the Chairman of ICANN.

Cerf has worked for Google as its Vice President and Chief Internet Evangelist since September 2005.[3] In this function he has become well known for his predictions on how technology will affect future society, encompassing such areas as artificial intelligence, environmentalism, the advent of IPv6 and the transformation of the television industry and its delivery model.[9]

Cerf also went to the same high school as Jon Postel and Steve Crocker; he wrote the former's obituary. Both were also instrumental in the creation of the Internet as we know it (see articles).

Contents

Career

Cerf's first job after obtaining his B.S. degree in Mathematics from Stanford University was at IBM, where he worked for less than two years as a systems engineer supporting QUIKTRAN.[1] He left IBM to attend graduate school at UCLA where he earned his M.S. degree in 1970 and his Ph.D. degree in 1972.[10] During his graduate student years, he studied under Professor Gerald Estrin, worked in Professor Leonard Kleinrock's data packet networking group that connected the first two nodes of the ARPANet,[11] the predecessor[11] to the Internet, and "contributed to a host-to-host protocol" for the ARPANet.[12] While at UCLA, he also met Robert E. Kahn, who was working on the ARPANet hardware architecture.[12] After receiving his doctorate, Cerf became an assistant professor at Stanford University from 1972–1976, where he conducted research on packet network interconnection protocols and co-designed the DoD TCP/IP protocol suite with Kahn.[12]

Cerf playing Spacewar! on the Computer History Museum's PDP-1, ICANN meeting, 2007.

Cerf then moved to DARPA in 1976, where he stayed until 1982.

As vice president of MCI Digital Information Services from 1982–1986, Cerf led the engineering of MCI Mail, the first commercial email service to be connected to the Internet. Cerf rejoined MCI during 1994 and served as Senior Vice President of Technology Strategy. In this role, he helped to guide corporate strategy development from a technical perspective. Previously, he served as MCI's senior vice president of Architecture and Technology, leading a team of architects and engineers to design advanced networking frameworks, including Internet-based solutions for delivering a combination of data, information, voice and video services for business and consumer use.

During 1997, Cerf joined the Board of Trustees of Gallaudet University, a university for the education of the deaf and hard-of-hearing.[13] Cerf is hard of hearing.[14]

Cerf joined the board of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) in 1999, and served until the end of 2007.[15]

Cerf is a member of the Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov's IT Advisory Council, a group created by Presidential Decree on March 8, 2002.[16] He is also a member of the Advisory Board of Eurasia Group, the political risk consultancy.[17]

Cerf is also working on the Interplanetary Internet, together with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. It will be a new standard to communicate from planet to planet, using radio/laser communications that are tolerant of signal degradation.[18]

During February 2006, Cerf testified before the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation's Hearing on “Network Neutrality”.[19] Speaking as Google's Chief Internet Evangelist, Cerf blamed the anticompetitive intentions and practices of telecommunications conglomerates like Comcast and Verizon for the fact that nearly half of all consumers lack meaningful choice in broadband providers.[20] Google made a bid in 2006 to offer free wireless broadband access throughout the city of San Francisco in conjunction with Internet service provider Earthlink, Inc.[21] Vertically-integrated telecommunications incumbents like Comcast and Verizon opposed such efforts on the part of Silicon Valley firms like Google and Intel (which promotes the WiMax standard) as undermining their revenue in a form of "unfair competition" whereby cities would violate their commitments to offer local monopolies to telecommunications conglomerates.[22] Google currently offers free wi-fi access in its hometown of Mountain View, California.[23]

Cerf currently serves on the board of advisors of Scientists and Engineers for America, an organization focused on promoting sound science in American government.[24]

Cerf is on the board of directors of StopBadware, a non-profit anti-malware organization that Google has supported since its inception as a project at Harvard University's Berkman Center for Internet & Society.[25][26]

Cerf is on the board of advisors of The Hyperwords Company Ltd of the UK, which works to make the web more usefully interactive and which has produced the free Firefox Add-On called 'Hyperwords'.[27]

During 2008 Cerf chaired the IDNAbis working group of the IETF.[28]

Cerf was a major contender to be designated the nation's first Chief Technology Officer by President Barack Obama.[29]

Awards and honors

Cerf has received a number of honorary degrees, including doctorates, from the University of the Balearic Islands, ETH in Switzerland, Capitol College, Gettysburg College, George Mason University, Marymount University, University of Pisa, University of Rovira and Virgili (Tarragona, Spain), Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Luleå University of Technology (Sweden), University of Twente (Netherlands), Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Brooklyn Polytechnic, UPCT (University of Cartagena, Spain), Royal Roads University (Canada) and Polytechnic University of Madrid.

Further awards include:

Cerf and Bob E. Kahn being awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President George W. Bush
Cerf and Bulgarian President Parvanov being awarded the St. Cyril and Methodius in the Coat of Arms Order

Partial bibliography

Cerf speaking at the National Library of New Zealand.
Cerf at 2007 Los Angeles ICANN meeting.
License plate circa 1996.

Author

Co-author

Notes and references

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 Cerf's curriculum vitae as of February 2001, attached to a transcript of his testimony that month before the United States House Energy Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet, from ICANN's website
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Gore Deserves Internet Credit, Some Say, a March 1999 Washington Post article
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Cerf's up at Google, from the Google Press Center
  4. ↑ Making Televised Emergency Information Accessible from the Gallaudet University website
  5. ↑ Although it's a title he objects to (see Interview with Vinton Cerf, from a January 2006 article in Government Computer News), Cerf is willing to call himself one of the Internet's fathers, citing Bob Kahn and Leonard Kleinrock in particular as being others with whom he should share that title.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Cerf wins Turing Award Feb 16, 2005
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 2005 Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients from the White House website
  8. ↑ "The World Internet Provider". http://www.std.com/. Retrieved 2009-05-28. 
  9. ↑ The Daily Telegraph, August, 2007
  10. ↑ "UCLA School of Engineering Alumnus Chosen for Prestigious Turing Award". UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science. Spring 2005. http://www.engineer.ucla.edu/magazine/Spring05/turing.html. 
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 "Internet predecessor turns 30". CNN. 1999-09-02. http://www.cnn.com/TECH/computing/9909/02/internet.anniv/. 
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 "INTERNET PIONEERS CERF AND KAHN TO RECEIVE ACM TURING AWARD". ACM. 2005-02-16. http://campus.acm.org/public/pressroom/press_releases/2_2005/turing_2_14_2005.cfm. 
  13. ↑ Dr. Vinton G. Cerf Appointed to Gallaudet University's Board of Trustees, from that university's website
  14. ↑ Vinton Cerf - Father of the Internet, Vinton Cerf
  15. ↑ ICANN Board of Directors - Vinton G. Cerf
  16. ↑ IT Advisory Council (PITAC) from the official website of the President of Bulgaria
  17. ↑ Eurasia Group
  18. ↑ The InterPlaNetary Internet Project IPN Special Interest Group
  19. ↑ Testimony before the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce
  20. ↑ Travis, Hannibal (2006). "Wi-Fi Everywhere: Universal Broadband Access as Antitrust and Telecommunications Policy". American University Law Review, vol. 55, p. 1720 (President and Trustees of American University in Washington, DC). http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=903425. Retrieved June 4, 2010. 
  21. ↑ Ibid., at 1701
  22. ↑ Ibid., at 1770
  23. ↑ http://wifi.google.com/
  24. ↑ http://www.sefora.org/board_of_advisors.php
  25. ↑ http://stopbadware.org/home/board
  26. ↑ http://stopbadware.org/home/pr_012306
  27. ↑ http://www.hyperwords.net/about_us_adv.html
  28. ↑ IDNAbis WG
  29. ↑ http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1208/16189.html
  30. ↑ SIGCOMM Awards
  31. ↑ http://www.ostp.gov/html/motmos.html
  32. ↑ ACM: Fellows Award / Vinton G. Cerf
  33. ↑ ISOC-Bulgaria: IT-delegation in Sofia
  34. ↑ 2008 (24th) Japan Prize Laureate
  35. ↑ http://www.yale.edu/ypu/minutes/ypu-2009-04-15.html
  36. ↑ Vint Cerf's Top YouTube Videos
  37. ↑ IP: Al Gore's support of the Internet, by V.Cerf and B.Kahn

External links

Awards and achievements
Preceded by
Tadahiro Sekimoto		 IEEE Alexander Graham Bell Medal
1997
with Bob Kahn		 Succeeded by
Richard Blahut
A. M. Turing Award laureates

Alan Perlis (1966) · Maurice Vincent Wilkes (1967) · Richard Hamming (1968) · Marvin Minsky (1969) · James H. Wilkinson (1970) · John McCarthy (1971) · Edsger W. Dijkstra (1972) · Charles Bachman (1973) · Donald Knuth (1974) · Allen Newell / Herbert Simon (1975) · Michael O. Rabin / Dana Scott (1976) · John Backus (1977) · Robert Floyd (1978) · Kenneth E. Iverson (1979) · C. A. R. Hoare (1980) · Edgar F. Codd (1981) · Stephen Cook (1982) · Ken Thompson / Dennis Ritchie (1983) · Niklaus Wirth (1984) · Richard Karp (1985) · John Hopcroft / Robert Tarjan (1986) · John Cocke (1987) · Ivan Sutherland (1988) · William Kahan (1989) · Fernando J. Corbató (1990) · Robin Milner (1991) · Butler Lampson (1992) · Juris Hartmanis / Richard Stearns (1993) · Edward Feigenbaum / Raj Reddy (1994) · Manuel Blum (1995) · Amir Pnueli (1996) · Douglas Engelbart (1997) · Jim Gray (1998) · Fred Brooks (1999) · Andrew Yao (2000) · Ole-Johan Dahl / Kristen Nygaard (2001) · Ron Rivest / Adi Shamir / Leonard Adleman (2002) · Alan Kay (2003) · Vint Cerf / Bob Kahn (2004) · Peter Naur (2005) · Frances E. Allen (2006) · Edmund M. Clarke / E. Allen Emerson / Joseph Sifakis (2007) · Barbara Liskov (2008) · Charles P. Thacker (2009)