FOUR FATHERS OF THE INTERNET ==== While so many contributed to the founding and growth of the Internet, four pioneers have been singled out by the National Academy of Engineering with their prestigious Charles Stark Draper award as "fathers of the Internet." These four Internet fathers are highlighted, along with their contributions, below (two each from ARPA, UCLA, in chronological order): Dr. Lawrence Roberts - Creator of the ARPANET As ARPA Chief Scientist from 1967-73, Larry was the chief program manager of the ARPANET project. Larry defined the original goals of the ARPANET in a 1967 paper, and later issued a detailed RFP. In his own words, Larry's contribution was "designing, managing and building the first routed packet network, the ARPANET. The design required finding the optimal network topology, selecting the best technologies for the packet routers, writing the RFP spec, contracting and managing the develop- ment of the routers and the computer interfaces at each site, getting all the protocols designed and developed, and convincing all the universities to connect to the network. Also, and perhaps more difficult, getting Congress to fund the network, and fighting off the circuit-switching critics who said it [packet-switching] was impossible." Larry left ARPA in late 1973 to run Telenet, later becoming president of ATM Systems Div. of Connectware Inc. (1997), then joined Anagran Inc. (2004) Dr. Leonard Kleinrock - ARPANET Network Theorist/Analyst/Lab Mgr./UCLA Prof. In his MIT doctoral research from 1959-63, and in his 1964 book ("Communication Nets, Stochastic Message Flow and Delay"), UCLA Prof. Kleinrock (according to Larry Roberts) "proved the efficacy of packet networks and adaptive distributed routing" at a time when there were many doubters, allowing Larry Roberts to proceed with the ARPANET as a packet-routed network. Moreover, in his ARPANET role as project leader/ PI of the UCLA Network Measurement Center, Len continued to generate packet queueing theory and simulations that guided design decisions -- while also training legions of PhD students on this subject while a professor at UCLA. Len wrote 2 textbooks on queueing theory, and is Professor Emeritus in computer science at UCLA, as well as founder of Nomadix Corp. Dr. Vinton G. Cerf - ARPANET/Internet Protocol Designer (TCP/IP) In 1973, UCLA PhD Vint Cerf while at Stanford, working with ARPA's Bob Kahn (cf. below), completed their design of a new network protocol, TCP, that could handle a very large number of hosts (larger address space), support error-free file transmission, and last (be able to handle any network of the future). Vint and Bob later split off "IP" to produce a layer 3-4 protocol stack of TCP/IP in 1977. The next version, now referred to as "TCP/IPv4," introduced a year later, became the world-wide Internet standard still used today. Vint is credited by Larry with "selling" his "sound protocol stack" to the extent it became a world- wide standard, after Vint joined Bob Kahn at ARPA in 1976 as ARPANET program mgr. Vint spent "5 years on his PhD at UCLA, then 4 years at Stanford working on the Internet, then 6 years at ARPA (1976-82) running the Internet research program, then 4 years at MCI designing/implementing MCI Mail, then 8 years with Bob Kahn at CNRI working on information infrastructure, then 11 years at MCI putting more Internet infrastructure in place." He was also a co-founder (in 1992) of the Internet Society (ISOC); is also working on the Interplanetary Network, a project of NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab, which aims to extend the Internet into outer space for planet-to-planet communications. He will also continue in his role as the Chairman of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). Vint is currently Sr. VP/Chief Internet Evangelist at Google. Dr. Robert Kahn - TCP/IP Co-designer and 2nd ARPA Chief Bob Kahn worked for ARPA chief Larry Roberts when the ARPANET was founded in 1969, and replaced Larry as chief in late 1973. Bob oversaw the system design of the original IMPs by BBN. Bob co-designed TCP/IP with Vint Cerf, and together made it the world-wide network standard. Further, by keeping ARPANET (and later the Internet) open and license-free, Bob and Vint made the "Internet" a reality. Bob is President of the Corp. for National Research Initiatives (1997) AWARDS For their pioneering Internet work, the 4 fathers received these awards: Len Kleinrock - LM Ericsson Prize presented by King of Sweden in Stockholm, the Marconi Award, the IEEE Internet Millennium Award, and the 2007 National Medal of Science (awarded by Pres. Bush in the White House in Sept. 2008) with the citation: “For fundamental contributions to the mathematical theory of modern data networks, for the functional specification of packet switching which is the foundation of the Internet Technology, for mentoring generations of students and for leading the commercialization of technologies that have transformed the world.” Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn - 1997 National Medal of Technology (by Pres. Clinton), the 2005 Presidential Medal of Freedom (by Pres. Bush), and the 2004 ACM Turing Award Vint Cerf - Living Legend Medal from the Library of Congress in April 2000, UCLA School of Engineering Alumnus of the Year 2003 Larry Roberts, Len Kleinrock, Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn - National Academy of Engineering's Charles Stark Draper award