Hi
my name is Vint Cerf
I'm the Founding President of the Internet Society
which began
operation in January of 1992
but we announced the creation of the Internet Society
at an INET Conference in June of 1991 in Copenhagen
Denmark
the INET Conferences that were begun by Larry Landweber
at the reason for announcing the creation of the Internet Society
was a message that i got from
Steve Wolff
who at the time was that the uh... CISE organization c_i_s_e scene of the
National Science Foundation
they had been sponsoring
the secretariat for the Internet Engineering Task Force
which at the time was led by Phil Gross
he and I were both employees of the Corporation For National Research
Initiatives
an organization founded by Bob Khan
uh... it was uh... advised to that
the NSF to keep spending money on the Internet Engineering Task
Force because that was research funding
and in fact the IETF had become by this time uh... a much more commercially
oriented activity many different vendors who are part of the uh... Internet
community
or participating in the creation of an and uh... evolution
of the Internet Protocols
so that it immediately occurred to me that uh... we would need to create an
organization that could
gather funding
uh... from a variety of sources in order to support the secretariat
uh... i met with uh... my then colleagues these are the Internet Activities
Board later to become the Internet Architecture Board
then described uh... this notion of the an Internet society modeled after
professional societies uh... elsewhere
uh... and after we got most of the uh... processes organized
I recall that there was a race between Steve Wilson Jon Postel to see who
could break the for seventy dollars cheque to become the first member
of the Internet Society and Jon Postel won
now of course that many years have gone by, 20 of the in particular, and we're
now celebrating here in Geneva the twentieth anniversary of the Internet
Society
I want to acknowledge especially the leadership of Lynn St. Amore who
has been the President of the Internet Society for at least a decade now
uh... it was her decision
to bid for the dot org top-level domain operation
which produced an enormously improved the economic picture
for the Internet Society has allowed it to expand dramatically its efforts to
promote openness and spread of Internet all around the world. I look forward to
seeing all of you at this point twenty the anniversary
here in Geneva and I hope we'll have an opportunity to share and
reminisce about the past and speculate about the future. In the meantime, I'll
see you on the net
The idea for ISOC literally rose
com slowly rose in the early nineteen nineties in connection with the growth
of the Internet beyond its initial base of users in the research and educational
communities
uh... in particular uh... with the increased commercial and international
participation, Vint Cerf and I felt that most new users would benefit greatly from a
from better understand what the Internet is
how it might involve in the future
this informational aspect was one key reason for starting ISOC
another reason was to have an organization
uh... devoted to the preservation of important historical material uh...
relating to the Internet and at that time the basic work on Internet
standards development was being carried out filed by the IETF with Secretariat
at support from CNRI
this evolved over time into a role for ISOC in helping to support the IETF
standards process going forward. Another objective for ISOC that we
felt worth uh... pursuing
uh... was the creation of a global community of users that can interact
with each other via the Internet itself
uh... or via selected uh... conferences and uh... workshops
one early effort along those lines
was to bring into ISOC the already established INET series of uh...
conferences. A large number of people and
organizations have been involved in the creation and evolution of ISOC
two decades of its existence
all of whom I believe deserve our appreciation for their helpful
contributions
I would note especially the role that CNRI played in funding and
incubating ISOC during his first two years and particularly the
contributions of Vint Cerf both as a CNRI employee and as the first
President of ISOC during that period
I believe that ISOC will continue to play an important role in the coming
years as the use the Internet grows to encompass most of the world's population
so uh... happy twentieth birthday ISOC
hello everyone I am Raul Echeberria
I am serving now in the Board of the Internet Society sine 2008
and I am the Chair of the Internet Society in 2009
I'm very glad to be part of these 20th Anniversary celebrations
of the Internet Society
and I am very proud of course
being Chair of the Board during this special year for the organization
The first time that I participated in an international
Internet event was in 1996
in Montreal. I participated as a student in a workshop organized
by the Internet Society
it was
the way I become involved in the international
community
many colleagues from Latin America took the opportunity of those meetings
to meet among us
and tried to organized ourselves in a way that was mission related
so it is uhÉincredible for me
i look to the past
and I see how I started to participate
in the international level
thanks to the Internet Society
and now 15 years later I am the Chair of The Board of the organization
It is amazing when I remember I met Vint Cerf for the first time in that
meeting that he was like a hero for me
uh... now I'm seated in the same seat that he was many years ago
and i think that this is a small anecdote but it shows
how the Internet Society has been very active in involving people
from around the world
in
in the
discussion about Internet public policies but also
but also in bringing people into the activities related to the development of the Internet in different
regions uh... through the Internet we can also participate in the
the development of our countries
our societies
this is what I can remark on from the Internet Society
now
it is twenty years later after the foundation of the organization
we have Chapters from many countries from different regions,
, Organization Members, and thousands of people
individual members of the organization
I think that this is incredible for any organization
I think the only thing I can anticipate
for the future of the Internet Society is a big success
and continue doing what the Internet Society has been doing until now
bringing people together for the benefit of all or the society and all the world
I'm very proud to be a part of this organization. Thank you Internet Society
for giving me the opportunity to participate in this organization. Thank you
and congratulations for all the work that has been done in those
very young twenty years
I'm Lynn St. Amour, President and CEO of the
it gives me great pleasure to congratulate the Internet Society's founders, members, Chapters, Board Members and
staff
on reaching our 20th
anniversary
we owe our thanks to many
known, and not so well known
as the Internet has improved virtually every aspect of our lives today
we hope you'll enjoy our celebrations
over the coming year and we invite you to join us in Geneva next April 22-24th
at our global Internet
conference Global INET
Our hope for the future
in that everyone in the world
has equal access
to a ubiquitous, reliable and open Internet
where all countries of the world are on par
we look forward to working together
to safeguard an open Internet
thank you to all
and happy 20th anniversary
ISOC