Inducted Rob Blokzijl into the Internet Hall of Fame

Twenty-one pioneering individuals who radically changed the world through their work building and developing the global Internet have been inducted into the Internet Hall of Fame. These engineers, physicists, mathematicians, academics, and others from 11 countries have made outstanding contributions to the global growth of the Internet, inventing the technologies they launched, expanding its reach in their regions and throughout the world, and making it safer. Trusted and accessible to millions.

The Internet they helped create brought the new group together in a virtual induction ceremony on December 14, 2021. They logged on from points around the world to share the credit with their colleagues, to whom Internet Society President Andrew Sullivan commented: “The contributions have enabled us to look to our future. inextricably linked to an open, globally connected, secure and trusted Internet, and the ability to connect with us reliably and consistently.”

The recruits for 2021 are:

Carlos Afonso (Brazil/Canada) has promoted Internet development and democratic access in Brazil and beyond through his role as founder and leader of several important organizations, including the Association for Progressive Communications.

Doctor. Robert “Rob” Blokzijl (Netherlands) has been instrumental in the development and use of the Internet in Europe, the Middle East and Central Asia as founder and leader of Réseaux IP Européens (RIPE) and RIPE NCC, and as a contributor to other influential international network organizations.

Hans-Werner Braun (US) played an instrumental role in the design, development and operation of the National Science Foundation Network, NSFNET, and the network’s subsequent growth in speed, coverage, and reliability, which served as a model for Internet networks around the world and paved the way for routing at scale.

Frode Greisen (Denmark) helped create the backbone of the European Internet EBONE, considered the original Internet in Europe, and was instrumental in expanding the network to Western and Eastern Europe, North Africa, and Iran.

Jan Gruntorad (Czech Republic) was an early proponent of international R&D networks in Czechoslovakia, beginning the country’s connection to the European Academic and Research Network (EARN) in the first half of 1990, and shortly thereafter, until the creation of CESNET, the Czech Education and Science Network .

Doctor. Saul Hahn (USA) has played an important role in connecting many Caribbean and many Latin American countries to the Internet.

The creation and management of a fair and sustainable system of IP address allocation by Kim Hubbard (US) has essentially safeguarded the development of the Internet as a member-led autonomous network.

Rafael “Leto” Ibarra (El Salvador) connected El Salvador to the Internet and worked to improve early access systems nationwide.

Dan Kaminsky (US) promoted the adoption of a more secure domain naming system (DNS) by discovering and fixing a serious Internet flaw in 2008, now known as the Kaminsky flaw.

DaeYoung Kim (South Korea) has played a key role in the development of regional network infrastructure in Asia Pacific and has pioneered many technologies needed to share compressed and uncompressed video on the Internet.

Kenneth J. Klingenstein (US) spearheaded the expansion of the Internet in the American West and played an early and important role in the development of the Internet’s layers of identity and trust.

Doctor. Xing Li (China) has been a pioneer in the development of the Internet in China, beginning with his work in the 1990s to connect Chinese academic and research institutions and continuing his contributions to the development and implementation of IPv6 in that country and throughout the world.

Yngvar G. Lundh (Norway) developed the Internet in Europe by interconnecting networks between the Norwegian and US Departments of Defense, which helps find the first ARPANET connection outside the US in Norway and helps secure .no as the first domain outside the US

Alejandro Besanti (Mexico) has been instrumental in influencing policies to support the growth and improvement of the Internet in Mexico and across Latin America.

Yakov Richter (US) helped develop the first Border Gateway Protocol (BGP), an essential technology for extending the reach of the Internet, and played a major role in the development of BGP through its later versions.

Philip Smith (Australia) has fueled the growth of the Internet in the Asia Pacific, Africa and Middle East region through his leadership roles in influential network organizations and his assistance in coding best practices for technical processes and protocols, especially Border Gateway Protocols (BGP).

Pål Spilling (Norway) was instrumental in creating the first ARPANET outside the US node in 1973, and then helped expand that link to a second external node, paving the way for a global network.

Liane Tarouco (Brazil) played a key role in the design and implementation of Brazil’s first Internet backbone and helped train a generation of engineers and network professionals in Brazil and abroad.

Virginia Strazisar Travers (US) designed and wrote the software that created Internet portals, an introduction to routers and the basic component that allows different networks to communicate.

George Varghese (USA) has made a major contribution to the usability of the Internet by inventing algorithms that increase its speed. These concepts are described in the 2004 field-defining handbook, “Network Algorithms: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Rapid Network Device Design”.

Doctor. Lixia Zhang (US) design of the high-impact Resource Reservation Protocol (RSVP), which served as the basis for Internet traffic engineering by most major network operators, has facilitated the efficient management and growth of core Internet networks for more than two decades.