Internet pioneer to speak at UC Irvine

EVENT: The California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2) at the University of California, Irvine will host Vinton Cerf, widely recognized as one of the founding fathers of the Internet. Cerf will discuss the Internet’s future, and the comprehensive social and economic changes that will result as more of the world’s population attains online connectivity. The impact the Internet will have as more applications become available – from new devices to evolving markets to eroding business models – will be explored. Cerf will also share his views on information “bit rot.”

DATE: Wednesday, April 18, 2007
TIME: 7:30-9 a.m. Continental breakfast will be provided.
LOCATION: Calit2, first floor auditorium, UCI campus.

BACKGROUND: While enrolled in UCLA’s graduate program in computer science in the late ’60s and early ’70s, Cerf worked on the ARPANET, the earliest packet-switching computer network. He and Robert Kahn later collaborated on a system to connect multiple packet-switching networks, co-designing TCP/IP protocols and the basic architecture of the Internet.

In 1997, President Clinton recognized their work with the U.S. National Medal of Technology, and in 2005, Cerf and Kahn received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor bestowed in the U.S. They were also awarded the 2004 A. M. Turing Award, widely considered to be the computing field’s equivalent of the Nobel Prize.

Cerf is currently vice president and chief Internet evangelist for Google, Inc.