Tracking the Internet into the 21st Century

Abstract: The Internet was designed in 1973, began operation in 1983, became widely known to the general public in 1993 and now has become a global infrastructure for all forms of communication. The network is relatively unaware of the applications that use it and also relatively insensitive to the technologies that transport its Internet "packets" around the world. Where did the Internet come from? What is its condition today? How will it be used tomorrow? What might we expect it to look like in the next decade? What technical and international policy challenges does the Internet pose? Could it be made to operate across our solar system to support manned and robotic exploration? Answers to these questions and more will be provided in this presentation. Short Biography: Vinton G. Cerf is vice president and chief Internet evangelist for Google. Cerf served as a senior vice president of MCI from 1994-2005, as VP of the Corporation for National Research Initiatives from 1986-1994, as VP MCI from 1982-1986, and as Principal Scientist, US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Information Processing Techniques Office from 1976-1982. Cerf was a member of the Stanford Faculty from 1972-1976. Widely known as one of the "Fathers of the Internet," Cerf is the co-designer of the TCP/IP protocols and the architecture of the Internet. He received the U.S. National Medal of Technology in 1997 and the 2004 ACM Alan M. Turing award. In November 2005, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom and in April 2008 the Japan Prize. Vint Cerf served as chairman of the board of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) from 2000-2007 and was founding president of the Internet Society. He is a Fellow of the IEEE, ACM, and American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the International Engineering Consortium, the Computer History Museum and the National Academy of Engineering. He is an honorary Freeman of the City of London and a member of the American Philosophical Society. Cerf holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematics from Stanford University and Master of Science and Ph.D. degrees in Computer Science from UCLA and is the recipient of over a dozen honorary degrees