2001 Boston History Makers Awards
On November 13, 2001, the Boston History Collaborative presented the
2001 Boston History Makers Awards to Gillette (where the disposable
razor blade was invented), MIT, Genuity (the Internet service spinout
from BBN for its role in the ARPAnet/Internet), Genzyme (for biotech
solutions to certain health disorders), and the Boston Red Sox (in
honor of their 100th anniversary).
Various notable Boston-area people presented the various awards.
The best presentation, however, was given by John Kenneth Galbraith to
Gillette. Galbraith is in his 90's and is frail, but is still a
wonderful and witty speaker (speaking without written notes).
Accepting the award relating to BBN was Steve Blumenthal who worked
at BBN for many years and is now a top VP at Genuity. He brought with
him to accept the award five BBN people from the early days of the
Internet:
- Frank Heart -- who led the BBN ARPANET team
- Ray Tomlinson -- who first implemented networked email and choose the at-sign (@) for
network addresses
- Leo Beranek -- co-founder of Bolt Beranek and
Newman Inc. (BBN)
- Dave Walden -- one of three programmers on the
initial BBN ARPANET team
- Alex McKenzie -- who joined the BBN ARPANET
team at an early date and led the creation of the ARPANET Network
Monitoring Center
The following photo (taken by Dan Bricklin) is of the above
mentioned BBN people, left to right as listed above).
[Some of the
text above was also adapted from Dan Bricklin's web site,
www.bricklin.com.]
2007 Boston Champions of Innovation Induction
On June 4, 2007, our ARPANET/Internet team was again honored
by the Boston History and Innovation Collaborative, where we were
called Living Legends. Other Living Legends that evening were Eric
Lander (who sequenced the human genome), Jay Forrester (who invented core memory and
System Dynamics), Joseph Murray (who completed the first successful
kidney transplant and opened the door of all other major organ
transplants), Peter Brooke (who created an innovative venture capital network),
and Clara Wainwright (who invented First Night).
The following photograph was taken at the event by professional photographer
Meghan Moore (www.megpix.com) who graciously allowed me to post the image here.
Pictured in the photo (with the 1969 photo of our original ARPANET team) are
(L to R) Ray Tomlinson, Dave Walden, Alex McKenzie, and Leo Beranek -- the same set of people as in the above 2001 photo.
The June 15, 2007 issue of The Sandwich Broadsider published this phono with a caption listing the same people's names as above but including the fact that I am an East Sandwich resident. The rest of the caption said [These men] made up a research team that paved the way for the Internet by inventing the ARPANET, a system for breaking apart, sending, and then reassembling data that allowed remote computers to communicate with each other. Here they hold a photo of themselves taken when they worked together. The group was recently honored as Local Living Legends of Innovation by the Boston History & Innovation Collaborative in Cambridge.