PResiDeNt (7/1/12 – 6/30/14)

VINTON G. CERF
Vice President and chief internet evangelist
google
reston, Va, USa

Biography

Vinton G. Cerf has served as VP and chief Internet evangelist for Google since October 2005. Previous positions include SVP of Technology Strategy and SVP of Architecture and Technology for MCI; VP of the Corporation for National Research Initiatives (CNRI); VP of MCI Digital Information Services; principal scientist at DARPA; and assistant professor of computer science and electrical engineering at Stanford University. He is also a distinguished visiting scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).

Cerf is the co-designer of the TCP/ IP protocols and the architecture of the Internet. Among honors received for this work are the U.S. National Medal of Technology, the ACM A.M. Turing Award, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Japan Prize, the Marconi Fellowship, Charles Stark Draper award, the Prince of Asturias award, the IEEE Alexander Graham Bell medal, the NEC Computer and Communications Prize, the Silver Medal of the ITU, the IEEE Koji Kobayashi Award, the ACM Software and Systems Award, the ACM SIGCOMM Award, the CCIA Industry Legend Award, the Kilby Award, the IEEE Third Millennium Medal, and the Library of Congress Bicentennial Living Legend medal. He has been inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame and was made an Eminent Member of the IEEE Eta Kappa Nu honor society. He is a Stanford Engineering School “Hero” and received a lifetime achievement award from the Oxford Internet Institute.

Cerf served as chairman of the board of ICANN for seven years. He is honorary chair of the IPv6 Forum, was a member of the U.S. Presidential Information Technology Advisory Committee 1997–2001, and sits on ACM Council and the boards of ARIN, StopBad Ware, CosmosID and Gorilla Foundation. He serves on JPL’s Advisory Committee and chairs NIST’s Visiting Committee on Advanced Technology. He is a Fellow of the ACM, IEEE, AAAS, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Computer History Museum, the Annenberg Center for communications, the Swedish Royal Academy of Engineering, the American Philosophical Society, the Hasso Plattner Institute. He is a member of the US National Academy of Engineering, a Distinguished Fellow of the British Computer Society, and was named one of People magazine’s “ 25 Most Intriguing People” in 1994.

Cerf holds a B.S. in Mathematics from Stanford and M.S. and Ph.D. in CS from UCLA. He is the recipient of 20 honorary degrees.

statement

I have been a member of ACM since 1967 and served as a member of Council in the distant past during which time my primary policy objective was to create the Fellow grade of ACM membership, and currently serve as a Member at Large on Council. I also served for four years as chairman of ACM SIGCOMM.

As President, I consider that my primary function will be to convey to Council and ACM leadership the policy views of the general membership. To this end, I will invite open dialog with any and all members of ACM so as to be informed of their views. I offer to do my best to represent these views and also to exercise my best judgment in the setting of ACM policy and assisting the staff in their operational roles.

It seems clear that ACM can and must take increasing advantage of the online environment created by the Internet, World Wide Web, and other applications supported by this global networking infrastructure. This suggests to me that Council and ACM leadership should be looking for ways to assist Chapters and Special Interest Groups to serve as conduits for two-way flows of information, education, training and expertise. The power and value of ACM membership flows from the contributions and actions of its members.

As a consumer of ACM publications, I am interested in increasing the accessibility and utility of ACM’s online offerings, including options for reducing the cost of access to content in this form. By the same token, I am interested in making the face-to-face events sponsored by ACM and its affiliates useful during and after the events have taken place. The possibility of audio, video, and text transcripts of presentations (perhaps starting with keynotes) seems attractive. If these forms of content can be made searchable, their value may well increase and persist over longer periods of time.

I am aware of the time commitment required of this position and can confirm that I am prepared to honor that commitment with the support of my employer, Google.