Robert Kahn, PhD

CEO and President of the Corporation for National Research Initiatives
Cofounder of the Internet

Robert Kahn is the co-inventor of the TCP/IP protocols and was responsible for originating DARPA’s Internet program. Known as one of the “Fathers of the Internet,” Kahn demonstrated the ARPNET by connecting 20 different computers at the International Computer Communication Conference. While Director of Information Processing Techniques Office (IPTO) at DARPA, he initiated the United States government’s billion dollar Strategic Computing Program, the largest computer research and development program ever undertaken by the federal government. In December 1997, President Bill Clinton presented the U.S. National Medal of Technology to Kahn and his colleague, Vinton Cerf, for founding and developing the Internet. In 2004, Kahn was the recipient of the ACM Alan M. Turing award (sometimes called the “Nobel Prize of Computer Science”) and in 2005 he was given the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President George Bush.