2008

John Jay Iselin, Former Marconi Society President, Dies at 74

In Memory of Sir Arthur C. Clark
December 16, 1917 - March 19, 2008

The world lost a true visionary with the death of Marconi Fellow Sir Arthur Charles Clarke, on March 19, 2008. A noted science fiction author, inventor, and futurist, he was most famous for his novel 2001: A Space Odyssey, which became an iconic movie directed by Stanley Kubrick. Far more important, however, was his role as the first person to specify in detail both the great potential and the technical requirements for using geostationary satellites for global communications.  Throughout his life he promoted the benevolent use of advanced space technology. 

Sir Arthur received the Marconi Prize and Fellowship in 1982, and also won the Franklin Institute Gold Medal in 1994, along with a nomination that year for a Nobel Prize.  He spent his later years in Sri Lanka, where he used his Marconi Prize to found the Arthur C. Clarke Center for Modern Technologies.

2007

2006

Crisis for American Entrepreneurship?

By Sally Sherwood
China's Rising Competitive Power May Pose a Potential Threat or a Window of Opportunity for the "American Dream
Read Article >>

2005

Turbo Code Inventor Claude Berrou Named 2005 Marconi Fellow

Turbo Code Inventor Claude Berrou Named 2005 Marconi Fellow From 3G telephones to pictures from deep space, Berrou's turbo code invention improves daily life and aids in the quest for discovery.
Press Release

To learn more about Claude Berrou, visit the École Nationale Supérieure des Télécommunications de Bretagne Website (in French) ENST Bretagne

View news coverage on Marconi Fellow Claude Berrou and Lifetime Achievement Award recipient Gordon Moore

Intel Founder Gordon Moore
Receives the Marconi Society 2005 Lifetime Achievement Award

Intel Founder Gordon Moore Receives the Marconi Society 2005 Lifetime Achievement Award.

On the 40th anniversary of the publication of "Moore's Law," Gordon Moore will become the third person in the Society's history to receive honor.
Press Release

Marconi Fellows Vinton Cerf and Robert Kahn
Receive Presidential Medal of Freedom, nation's highest civil award

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/11/20051103-5.html
http://news.com.com/Internet+fathers+get+presidential+medal/2100-1034_3-5934004.html

William O. Baker, a founding director of the Marconi Society, died 31 October 2005.

William Oliver Baker (1915-2005)

Obituary

Bill Baker was a devoted, stalwart supporter of the Society and, at his death, served as director-emeritus. As a tribute to his remarkable contributions to information technology, first as a researcher and then as leader of Bell Labs, Bill was awarded this organization’s second Lifetime Achievement Award in 2003.

The scope of his vision, the depth of his commitment to long-term research and the range of his public service, both to Presidents of the nation and institutions of distinction, are legendary. In the process, Bill Baker served on several prestigious national commissions and earned countless coveted awards and medals.

Throughout, he retained his engaging gifts of humor and humanity that only embellished his thoughtful, far-reaching wisdom. In William O. Baker, Marconi Society has lost a greatly valued friend.

To read more about William O. Baker visit: http://lucent.com/press/1105/051101.coa.html

Industry Insider: The brain drain, or Mr. Lucky's lament

Wednesday, August 03, 2005

Industry Insider: The brain drain, or Mr. Lucky's lament
By Kevin Coughlin, Newark Star-Ledger, August 3, 2005

In the lore of high technology, it never gets mentioned with, say, the garage where Hewlett and Packard got started.

But this traffic light in Red Bank was important to telecommunications.

Driving home from Bell Labs in Holmdel in 1965, Robert Lucky was waiting for the light to change at Front Street and Route 35 when he suddenly got the idea for the adaptive equalizer. (Read More)

2004

Google Founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page Receive 2004 Marconi Prize

Sergey Brin and Larry Page, who as Stanford graduate students successfully created the Google search engine, have been named the 2004 Fellows of the Marconi Foundation at Columbia University. In announcing their selection, John Jay Iselin, the Foundation's president, congratulated the two men for their invention that has fundamentally changed the way information is retrieved today.

2003

Marconi Fellow Robert M. Metcalfe
Receives 2003 National Medal of Technology from President Bush.

http://www.technology.gov/PRel/pr050215.htm

July 1, 2003 - Tri-State Tech Wire
Read Full Text >>

June 26, 2003 - Marconi Fellowship Foundation Selects 2003 Fellows
On June 25, The Guglielmo Marconi International Fellowship Foundation at Columbia University named two leaders in communications technology to receive this year's International Marconi Fellowship. Read Full Text >>.

June 22, 2003 - Museum honors the inventors and inventions from the dawn of electricity to the Golden Age of Radio
The Bellingham Herald:
... visitors to the American Museum of Radio are already seeing, hearing and touching a vast array of items - many quite rare - that illustrate the history of electricity starting in the 1600s through a progression of discoveries that include the telegraph, telephone, vacuum tubes and hundreds of radios, from living-room console models to one from a World War I submarine...
Dr. Francesco Marconi, the chairman of the Marconi International Fellowship Foundation and grandson of the radio pioneer, serves on the museum's advisory board. Read Full Text >>.

January, 17th 2003: Internet Stars F�te Berners-Lee; Pioneer hopeful, but names four fetters to the Web's progress
Web Only Article from SpectrumOnline

Jan. 3, 2003: Marconi Foundation Honors World Wide Web Inventor Berners-Lee
It is almost impossible today to imagine life without the World Wide Web, but little more than a decade ago it was still only a concept dwelling within one man's unique vision. Read Full Text >>

2002

December 19, 2002 : "Small Connections" : Tim Berners-Lee hopes that his discovery of the World Wide Web remains as an open system for free thought and citizen rights. Even when used commercially, it can serve peace and inter-cultural understanding.
An interview by Niels Boeing.-- Die Tageszeitung . To read the rest of the interview (published in German), go to Read Full Text >>

Q: Recently you were again cited for your invention of the World Wide Web, this time with the Marconi Fellowship. How does it feel to be repeatedly faced with the fact that you did something historical?

BERNERS-LEE: It is strange. Imagine you're a crown prince, then you have to spend your entire life being told that you're special and have a special role. In fact I spent half of my career just as a programmer, and I am aware of the fact that anyone could have done what I did. So in a way bringing up the idea was like throwing a match into a barn full of hay. That was just one act. The web spread because a lot of individual people pushed to get it adopted. Take Paul Mockapetris. He wrote the protocol to make the domain name system work. ...

Q: ...to name a Web server and to find it...

BERNERS-LEE: The system is really a core part of the Internet technology and everything else is built on top of it. But it is not celebrated so much, although he's earned it, too. Yet people only recognize HTML. It is clear that everybody has a different role, and I ended up playing this role which is being labeled as inventor of the World Wide Web. That's just my role.

Nov. 18, 2002: Wireless: The next iteration of Internet growth
For all the commentary about wealth destruction in the Internet, it has increased in value from $100 billion in 1995 to $600 billion today," said Mary Meeker, managing director of Morgan Stanley Dean Witter. "I think people thought the Internet would double each year in perpetuity. The absolute growth is stunning, but the rate of growth has slowed," she said at the Marconi Foundation's conference, "World Wide Web Redux: Trends, Obstacles and Potential." (www.rcrnews.com) (Registration required.)

Nov. 1, 2002 "Tiny Circuits" - Tim Berners-Lee's interview on NPR's Science Friday.
Three little letters -- w-w-w -- have come to change how we communicate, get our information, and do our shopping. Host Ira Flatow talks to the inventor of the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee, about the history and future of the web -- including web standards, the exchange of data in the Semantic Web, and the tools and technologies responsible for web communication. Listen to the program in RealAudio.

Oct. 10, 2002: Viterbi to speak at Marconi Foundation Conference
The Marconi Foundation announced Andrew Viterbi, who developed the interference suppression algorithm used for major digital standards, will be a panelist at its Nov. 8 conference, "WWW Redux: Trends, Obstacles, Potential." (www.rcrnews.com) (Registration required.)