Bob Kahn (born 1938) is an American computer scientist and electrical engineer regarded as one of the principal architects of the Internet. Together with Vint Cerf he devised the Transmission Control Protocol and Internet Protocol (TCP/IP), the technical foundation that allows disparate computer networks to interconnect. [1] Earlier he played a central role in the design of the ARPANET, the packet-switched network from which the Internet grew. [2] For this work he received the 2004 Turing Award and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. [3]
Early life and education
Robert Elliot Kahn was born on 23 December 1938 in New York City. [1] He earned a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from the City College of New York in 1960, followed by a master's degree and a doctorate in electrical engineering from Princeton University. [1] After completing his studies he briefly worked at Bell Laboratories and joined the faculty of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he taught electrical engineering. [2]
ARPANET and packet switching
In 1966 Kahn took leave from MIT to join the technology firm Bolt Beranek and Newman (BBN), which had won the contract to build the ARPANET for the U.S. Advanced Research Projects Agency. [1] There he contributed to the overall system design of the network and to the Interface Message Processors that connected host computers to it. [2] In 1972 he organized a widely noted public demonstration of the ARPANET at the International Conference on Computer Communication, helping to establish the credibility of packet-switching technology. [1]
Inventing the Internet protocols
Kahn moved to the Advanced Research Projects Agency (later DARPA) in 1972, joining its Information Processing Techniques Office. [1] There he developed the concept of open-architecture networking, in which independently designed networks could be linked without requiring internal changes to any of them. [2] Working with Vint Cerf, he co-authored the seminal 1974 paper describing a protocol for interconnecting packet networks; the resulting design evolved into the paired TCP and IP protocols that still route traffic across the Internet. [3] Kahn eventually rose to lead the office, directing large-scale research programs in computing and networking. [1]
Later career
After leaving DARPA in 1985, Kahn founded the Corporation for National Research Initiatives (CNRI), a not-for-profit organization dedicated to research on the national information infrastructure. [1] Through CNRI he promoted work on digital object architecture and persistent identifiers for information, aimed at managing digital content reliably over long periods. [2]
Recognition and legacy
Often described, alongside Cerf, as a "father of the Internet," Kahn has received many of the highest honors in his field. [2] He and Cerf shared the 2004 A.M. Turing Award, computing's most prestigious prize, for their foundational work on internetworking. [3] He was awarded the U.S. National Medal of Technology in 1997 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2005, and he has been inducted into the Internet Hall of Fame and the National Inventors Hall of Fame. [1]
