A Conversation with Vinton Cerf

by University of Bologna, Marconi Foundation and Internet Society Italia

Oct. 3, 2018, University of Bologna, Giorgio Prodi Lecture Hall, Piazza San Giovanni in Monte 2, Bologna

On October 3, 2018, Bologna will host Dr. Vinton Cerf, co-creator of the Internet’s key networking technology. The event is structured as a round table with an explicit emphasis on interaction between the panelists and the audience as well as among the members of the audience. Organized by the University of Bologna, the Marconi Foundation and the Internet Society Italia, the event is hosted by the CIRSFID Bologna University, with Professor Monica Palmirani giving the welcoming presentation.

Elettra Marconi, Gabriele Falciasecca (Marconi Foundation), Filippo Giannetti (Pisa University), Stefano Trumpy (Internet Society Italy) and Enzo Valente (Consortium GARR) will partecipate in the round table.

Vinton Cerf, vice president and chief internet evangelist at Google, will start with the telegraph and then the dramatic wireless signal across the Atlantic in 1901 after the trans-Atlantic cable was laid for telegraphy. He will expose the fundamental role that Guglielmo Marconi had as a pioneer in telecommunications from the beginning of telecommunications historical arc more a century ago. Then on to broadcast radio, television. Then computers and packet switching, the ARPANET, the Internet, the Interplanetary network. He will pick up also satellite communications from 1960 to present plans for vast arrays of small, LEO satellites. Before closing, He will explore in a bit more detail the evolution of packet switching to the Software Defined Network of today.