Documentary journalists from the Imagining the Internet Center conducted individual interviews with 12 of the 14 Internet Hall of Fame 2017 inductees. In these talks, the new Hall of Fame members share a bit about their role in Internet evolution and about their hopes and fears for the future of the Internet.
Use the video viewer below to see answers. Click on the first video to begin a player that will cycle through all or click on those you wish to view. Click on the numbers at the end of the video column to display additional videos – there are 12 in all.
Interview participants were in Los Angeles for the fourth Internet Hall of Fame Induction and also attended several Internet Society 25th anniversary events.
Interviewees:
Jaap Akkerhuis: Akkerhuis played an instrumental role in developing the Internet in the Netherlands and Europe over many decades, starting in the early 1980s.
Yvonne Marie Andrés: Andrés was one of the first to use the Internet to develop and advance global e-learning opportunities for educators and students.
Alan Emtage: Emtage conceived of and implemented the world’s first Internet search engine, Archie, pioneering many techniques used by search engines today to help people find what they need.
Edward Krol: Krol was the original networking manager for the US National Center for Supercomputer Applications and also authored the “Hitchhikers Guide to the Internet,” an introduction for newbies.
Tracy LaQuey Parker: Parker authored two of the earliest Internet education guides for novices. “The User’s Directory of Computer Networks” is now considered a historic record of NSFNET.
Craig Partridge: Starting in the 1980s, Partridge contributed extensively to the Internet’s networking evolution for decades; some of his work included speedy router design and email routing using domain names.
Nabil Bukhalid: Bukhalid led the team at the American University of Beirut that brought the Internet to Lebanon and established the Lebanese Domain Registry (LBDR).
Ira Fuchs: Fuchs co-founded BITNET, a precursor to the Internet that offered many of the Internet’s core services years before the Internet’s commercialization.
Shigeki Goto: Goto was instrumental in the expansion of the Asia-Pacific Internet, translated many early Internet guides from English and served as a trustee of the Internet Society from 1994 to 1997.
Mike Jensen: Jensen wrote code in the late 1980s-90s that connected early email and bulletin board networks in developing countries with the global Internet.
Ermanno Pietrosemoli: Pietrosemoli was key in connecting Venezuela’s Universidad de los Andes to the Internet backbone and worked in development projects including enabling long-distance WiFi in the Andes.
Tadao Takahashi: Takahashi was instrumental in the planning and deployment of the Internet in Brazil and founded and led Brazil’s National Research Network.
Florencio Utreras: Utreras led the connection of Chile to the BITNET network in 1987, headed Chile’s pioneer academic network and is led the Latin American research networks group.
Jianping Wu: Wu led the design, development and evolution of the China Education and Research Networks, CERNET, the first Internet backbone in China, into the largest national academic network.
– Multimedia reports from the Internet Society’s 25th Anniversary activities were conducted for the Imagining the Internet Center by undergraduate researchers Diego Pineda Davila, Melissa Douglas, Alex Hager, Meg Malone, Alexandra Roat, Jared Mayerson and Erik Webb of Elon University’s School of Communications, under the supervision of Elon faculty members Janna Anderson and David Bockino.