DGS COMPUTING SCIENTISTS MEET ‘FATHER OF THE INTERNET’
Pupils attend Q&A session with ‘Chief Internet Evangelist’ Dr. Vint Cerf
Four pupils from Dunoon Grammar School recently attended a question and answer session with Dr Vinton G Cerf, an American computer scientist, who is recognised as one of only two “fathers of the Internet” and is currently employed as Google’s Chief Internet Evangelist.


While Sir Tim Berners-Lee developed the technology that gave us web pages in the early 1990s, almost 20 years earlier, Dr Cerf and his team developed the infrastructure that allows web pages, email and any other digital media to be transferred between geographically remote computers.
During the Edinburgh based Q&A session Cerf commented that he and his team “never set out to change the world but wanted to increase society’s capacity to change”. However, his contributions have been acknowledged and lauded with honorary degrees and awards that include the National Medal of Technology, Turing Award, Presidential Medal of Freedom and membership in the National Academy of Engineering.

The DGS pupils, Henry Togwell, Nico Matrecano, Ryan Cullen and Joseph Benassi had the opportunity, along with pupils from other Scottish schools, to submit questions to Dr Cerf. Dunoon’s question, about his work with NASA and JPL was one of only six chosen and Dr Cerf gave the boys an entertaining and insightful answer talking about his work on the interplanetary internet. Indeed, the pupils found all of the topics, which centred around computer networks, to be highly interesting commenting that “getting to speak to Dr Cerf was a once in a lifetime opportunity”.

In a private audience, pupils presented Dr Cerf with a specially produced bottle of whisky from the Springbank distillery in Campbeltown with a commemorative label, on behalf of Dunoon Grammar School and Dr Cerf declared that his train journey from Edinburgh back to London would be “all the more pleasant” and thanked the pupils for their kind gift.

Graham Stoddart from the school’s Faculty of Business & Computing commented:
“In years to come, future generations will speak of Dr Cerf alongside great innovators such as Alexander Graham Bell and John Logie Baird. The fact we had the opportunity to meet with him personally today was a real honour and a day we will remember.”

David Mitchell, Head Teacher of Dunoon Grammar School added:
“I would like to thank Dr Cerf for the time he spent with our pupils and for sharing his expertise and experiences with them. I would also like to thank our pupils for the positive impression they made on Dr Cerf with their knowledge of Computer Science.”

For further information, please contact Paul Gallanagh at Dunoon Grammar School on 01369 705010.