Net@50

Celebrating the origins of the Internet

Every so often, the media will publish a story ranking the most popular months of the year. October is always right up there — celebrated for Halloween, pumpkin spice lattes and all things Fall. In the tech world, October has a different significance — it’s the birthday month of the Internet. This October is particularly special because it coincides with the year the Internet turns 50. Or at least that’s the popular story!

The true 50th birthday of the Internet depends upon how you define its origin and who you believe created it. Many have staked claim to this including U.S. Vice-President Al Gore who famously told CNN in 1999 that he “took the initiative on creating the Internet.” Computer scientists Vinton Cerf and Bob Kahn are credited with inventing TCP/IP, which is the backbone of the modern Internet.

But truth be told the history of the Internet has its origin in an ARPA (Advanced Research Projects Agency) funded project, developed fifty years ago under the supervision of visionaries like Bob Taylor and Lawrence Roberts. In the Spring of 1968, they awarded SRI International (known back then as Stanford Research Institute) a contract to help develop a connected network of computers. The project, called ARPANET was the precursor to today’s Internet.