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2006 SESSION


SENATE JOINT RESOLUTION NO. 146
Commending Robert E. Kahn.
 
Agreed to by the Senate, January 26, 2006
Agreed to by the House of Delegates, February 3, 2006
 

WHEREAS, Robert E. Kahn was honored by President George W. Bush with the 2005 Presidential Medal of Freedom, America’s highest civilian award; and

WHEREAS, the Presidential Medal of Freedom honors meritorious achievement in public service, science, the arts, education, athletics, business, and other fields and distinguishes recipients who have secured a revered position in the life and culture of the country, as well as the admiration of the American people; and

WHEREAS, Robert Kahn received a bachelor of electronic engineering degree from the City College of New York in 1960, master's and doctoral degrees from Princeton University in 1962 and 1964, and honorary doctoral degrees from the most prestigious universities around the world; and

WHEREAS, Robert Kahn is the co-designer, along with Vinton Cerf, of the TCP/IP protocols and the architecture of the Internet; and

WHEREAS, Robert Kahn is chairman and president of the Corporation for National Research Initiatives, which he founded in 1986 as a not-for-profit organization to provide leadership for research and development of the National Information Infrastructure; and

WHEREAS, prior to establishing his own organization, Robert Kahn worked on the technical staff of Bell Laboratories; became an assistant professor of electrical engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); joined Bolt, Beranek and Newman, where he was responsible for the system design of the ARPANet; and served as the director of the United States Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's Information Processing Techniques Office, where he initiated the government's billion dollar strategic computing program; and

WHEREAS, Robert Kahn developed the first packet-switched network, conceived the idea of open-architecture networking, and coined the term National Information Infrastructure, which popularly became known as the Information Superhighway; and

WHEREAS, in 1997, President William J. Clinton presented the United States National Medal of Technology to Robert Kahn and his partner, Vinton Cerf, for founding and developing the Internet; and

WHEREAS, in 2004, Robert Kahn and Vinton Cerf received the ACM Alan M. Turing Award, often referred to as the "Nobel Prize of Computer Science," for their remarkable advances on Internet protocols; and

WHEREAS, a brilliant scientist, Robert E. Kahn has been honored with the most distinguished scientific awards in his field, contributes his vast knowledge and expertise to scientific organizations worldwide, and is recognized as one of the "Fathers of the Internet"; now, therefore, be it

RESOLVED by the Senate, the House of Delegates concurring, That the General Assembly commend Robert E. Kahn for his vision and pioneering spirit; and, be it

RESOLVED FURTHER, That the Clerk of the Senate prepare a copy of this resolution for presentation to Robert E. Kahn as an expression of the General Assembly’s admiration and gratitude for his unprecedented contributions to the technology that connects people all over the world.