ICANN Tribute to Dr. Vint Cerf, Vice President Al Gore, Nobel Laureate 207 Peace, Chairman, Generation Investment Management What impact can one person's work have? How many lives can be changed forever and for the better by one person's imagination? Well, if you're Vint Cerf, the answer is billions, because the Internet creates possibilities and connections and has wrought changes in the way we see each other as global citizens that no one could have imagined just 30 or 40 years ago. Today you can sit at home and connect to information on the Hubble Space Telescope or whatever. You can get crucial information on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, or you can simply get in touch with a friend. Vint was pivotal in creating this change. As you all know, he saw the networking potential of computers when he helped to create the Internet's protocols at the Department of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency in the early 1970s. He saw it when he led the creation of the first commercial e-mail service while working at MCI. He evangelizes about it every day now at Google. If the Internet is about networking, the sharing of information with no central point of control, then as ICANN's board chairman, Vint has applied that same basic philosophy. He has led a model that's all about coordination and not control. ICANN's 30th meeting sees the conclusion of Vint's 8 years of service to the board, 7 of them as chairman. When it was created in 1998, under the administration in which I was proud to serve as vice president, ICANN was envisioned as an organization where the private sector took leadership for the global task of coordinating the Internet's unique idenitifiers. Vint's leadership has helped immeasurably to make this vision a reality. He has been a tireless advocate for the model, and like many other participants in ICANN's work, his contribution has been voluntary. In the face of rapid expansion from millions of users in the 90s to over 1.2 billion today, the Internet continues to evolve, and it does so in response to the demand and ingenuity of users. Under Vint's stewardship, ICANN has introduced competition, helping to drop domain name costs by 80% and saving consumers and businesses over $1 billion US annually. New top-level domains have been introduced as well, expanding the options available in the domain name space. What ICANN, led by Vint, has achieved is truly fundamental. It means that day after day, people can continue to connect to each other. They can work from home instead of commuting, if they wish. They can research greener transportation options, renewable energy options. They can create jobs, inform one another, and start campaigns. It has been fundamental to the work of the Alliance for Climate Protection, which I work with, and to other non-governmental organizations all around the world. Without a single, interoperable Internet, we, for example, would not have been able to share scientifically factual information about the urgency of adopting effective and comprehensive solutions for the climate crisis. So Vint, on behalf of all the organizations like the Alliance and the 1.2 billion people using the Internet, on behalf of Internet users everywhere, I would like to simply say, thank you so much. Thanks for your work at ICANN, for your vision. Thanks for being a great friend and mentor and colleague. Congratulations, and have a wonderful night. Dr. Charles Elachi, Director, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Vice President, CA Institute of Technology Hello. We all know that Vint Cerf is an amazing fellow. He's widely known as the Father of the Internet, or one of the fathers of the Internet. But I'm more intrigued into his present position and his present title as the Chief Internet Evangelist for Google. Vint, hey man, I'm a believer! You have converted me! But I still was intrigued about what does this mean or what you are doing, so we went and Googled you. And here I see these pages and pages and pages about what you do, the awards that you have received, the great people that you associate with -- you know -- presidents and so on. But what I wanted to talk about today, because that will be described by many of the other people in this event, is what you are doing with us here at JPL, and to tell the audience -- I mean, Vint doesn't limit himself to being in California or part of the United States or in our planet. He wants to develop an Internet which is across the whole solar system, and the idea being that anyone can dial in an address for a space craft or a rover or any asset we have in space, and you can directly communicate with them. So basically expanding the Internet to be across the whole solar system. This is an example of how visionary Vint is. And Vint, I want to tell you, we all at JPL are proud and very delighted to have you, a distinguished visiting scientist at JPL, being on our advisory group, share with us your vision and help us develop the next frontier into the Internet development in the world of information. And we are all very proud with all your achievements, and on behalf of all the employees at JPL, I want to congratulate you about this event and wish you a great evening. Dr. Eric Schmidt, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer, Google I have one great hero in my life, and his name is Vint Cerf. He's my hero because of all the things that he and a team that he's led and his friends and partners have accomplished over the last 30 years in the creation of the Internet. It's no great surprise that during the last almost 10 years of his leadership in ICANN, you all, working hard, have delivered more than 4 times global Internet users, the creation of many new Internet domains, and more importantly, the values espoused are the kind of governance and consensus building that has so characterized Vint in his entire professional life. My congratulations to Vint, to ICANN, and to everything you all have done. We're delighted for his service and, even more importantly, we're delighted to have Vint back full-time at Google, doing the amazing things that he's going to do. So congratulations to Vint and to all of you. Dr. Tarek Kamel, Minister of Communications and Information Technology, Arab Republic of Egypt I'm glad to talk about my dear friend, the godfather of the Internet worldwide, Dr. Vint Cerf. Vint is a great friend of Egypt, is a great friend of mine. I have known him for the last 20 years. I met him the first time in the early 90s in California while I was attending at that time one of the preliminary courses about Internet protocol and IP connectivity. Today I am the minister of Communications and Information Technology in Egypt. But I have to say that Vint Cerf was one of my mentors in the Internet community and the Internet society worldwide. Vint, as I have mentioned as well, is a great friend of our region as well as of Egypt. Vint visited Egypt several times and has been providing his knowledge and his support to the development of the Internet in Egypt and in the region. On the personal level, he is a great man. He's a visionary. He has excellent ideas. He has a developmental vision about the Internet evolution worldwide. And he is someone who is really contributing to the overall development of this group. Vint was instrumental not only in the development with Bob Kahn of the IP protocol many years ago, but he was instrumental in building the Internet Society with its headquarters in Virginia with several other global players. Vint was instrumental to spread the know-how of the Internet worldwide, specifically with a special focus in the developing countries. He was always taking care of the welfare of the developing countries. He was always looking at bridging the gap between the developed world and the developing world. Vint was instrumental in the establishment of the ICANN as well. He has led the board of the ICANN for many years with a strong vision and the right leadership, an issue that has been causing a debate worldwide. Again, he is a great pivot of the Internet and of the development of the information technology in the Information Age. Commissioner Viviane Reding, Member of the European Commission (Information Society and Media) Ladies and gentlemen, it is a great honor for me to address the 30th international ICANN meeting. On behalf of the European Commission, I would like to express our appreciation of the valuable work carried out by ICANN's community since 1998 -- work which has done so much to further international collaboration and to ensure the development of the domain name system. The European Commission has been supportive of the ICANN process since the outset, and it will continue to be so as ICANN addresses future exciting challenges, such as internationalized domain names, new generic top-level domains, the transition to IPV-6. Such issues are key elements of the governance of the Internet that many of us have been busy with in the followup of the World Summit. Indeed, the Internet is a challenge for policy makers and for engineers alike. The growing emergence of WEP 2.2, the rapid deployment of mobile Internet applications and services, and the imminent arrival of the Internet of Things are among the plethora of innovations that will define and characterize the future of the Internet. Fortunately, we already have several important guiding principles to help us as we move forward. The principle of free speech must be respected. The Internet has proved to be one of the most powerful engines for free expression, and we must ensure that it stays that way by resisting all attempts at censorship. In practice, this means that the Internet users should be able to access or distribute any legal content they choose without interference by government. We must also respect the architectural principles of openness and interoperability. These technical principles are the main reasons why the Internet has been so successful at liberating innovation and stimulating creativity both for the Internet itself and for so many other areas of human social and economic activity. The respect for openness and interoperability are particularly important if we are to ensure the empowerment of of the individual user, whether they be citizen, a small business, or a researcher. Individual users worldwide need an Internet which allows them to express themselves freely, which allows them to innovate, which allows them to decide for themselves what services and content they wish to use. In many ways, this means protecting the positive aspects of the existing Internet. We have to build on the principles of the original Internet protocol that was developed by Vint Cerf and others, and which was so skillfully put into practice by them. The European Commission, which has successfully launched the .eu, will fully play its part to ensure the Internet's full potential. At the political level, we have to achieve the wisest objective of enhancing cooperation, and ensuring the equal inclusion of all countries. I am confident that we can build on the consensus achieved in Tunis, and that we can provide a truly representative process for the global governance of the Internet. In this context, we recognize that the international collaberation that ICANN represents owes much to the dynamic leadership of key figures, like the retiring chairman of the board, Vint Cerf. Vint, you are one of the founding fathers of the Internet. I do not flatter you by saying that we owe you gratitude for having made this spectacular technology possible. Thank you for a great professional and scientific contribution You have been also instrumental in other, equally valuable activities. Permit me to underline your major contributions in fields as varied as educational services for the deaf or the promotion of women in science. Looking at the list of professional, academic, scientific and societal activities that you have been engaged in over the years, I am really impressed! How did you manage to find the time to act as chairman of ICANN as well? Well, fortunately, you did. You leave ICANN a much stronger organization now than you have entered it. And an organization which has benefited much from the reputation and the skills of its chairman. We do not want to miss your contribution, and that is why I'm very glad that you continue your much-valued participation in the global dialogue concerning the Internet and its economic and social importance. Vint, thank you very much. All the best. And thanks also to ICANN for giving me the opportunity to address all of you.