Thursday, September 8, 2005
Google announced today, September 8, that they have hired Vinton Cerf, to serve as the Chief Internet Evangelist. He is often referred to as the “father of the Internet”. While working at the US Department of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) he played an important role in the development of the Internet. At DARPA he co-designed the TCP/IP protocol, on which the Internet runs.
Google CEO Eric Schmidt said “Cerf is clearly one of the great technology leaders of our time”. Cerf has been awarded the National Medal of Technology and the Premio Principe de Asturias de Investigacion Cientifica, or the Prince of Asturias Award for Technical and Scientific Research. People Magazine listed Cerf as one the “25 Most Intriguing People” in 1994. In early 2005 Cerf was included among the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) 2004 Turing Award winners. The Turing Award is considered one of the most prestigious computing awards.
Cerf, aged 62, is currently working on developing a new set of planet-to-planet communications protocols for NASA‘s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Prior to being hired by Google, he worked for MCI, where he led the development of MCI Mail. MCI Mail was the first commercial e-mail service to connect to the Internet. Cerf also serves as the Chairman of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a role he plans to continue.