Eight years of Vint Cerf's leadership of ICANN were celebrated yesterday during a special Gala event with guest appearances by two former Clinton administration officials, Ira Magaziner and Al Gore.
An emotional Vint Cerf says farewell to the ICANN Community
As President's Clinton's chief Internet policy advisor, Ira Magaziner oversaw the transition towards the model of Internet governance embodied by ICANN. He was instrumental in the creation of ICANN and hence knows the organization better than most. Magaziner was one of the many special guests to heap praise on both Cerf and the ICANN community in general during a unique tribute to Vint Cerf organized last night (Tuesday October 30) at Culver City's Sony Studios, near Los Angeles.
"What you, as a community, have achieved since 1998 is simply unprecedented," Magaziner said during a 20-minute speech. "You may feel sometimes that there are problems with ICANN, that things aren't happening fast enough or being done exactly the way they should be. But let me tell you that getting to something in just ten years that's independent enough to be dynamic and accountable enough to be accepted by governments worldwide, well in the political world that's never been seen before. You as a community should all be very proud of what you've achieved at ICANN."
Magaziner's words echoed the sentiments of all those who took to the stage, with ICANN CEO Paul Twomey comparing Cerf to the greatest scientific pioneers of the 20th century before adding that working with Cerf was "a pleasure" and calling him a "plain good bloke".
Steve Crocker, the chairman of ICANN's Security and Stability Advisory Committee and a fellow Internet pioneer, said he had known Cerf for "the better part of half a century" and that in all that time, "it had always been about having fun."
Cerf and all those lucky enough to be there (although admission to the Gala event was free, there were only 800 places available and with more than 1,400 participants to ICANN's LA meeting, people had started queuing up to get invitations at 7:30 am) then watched specially recorded video messages from Egyptian Minister of Communications and Information Technology Tarek Kamel, Google CEO Eric Schmidt, EU Commissioner Viviane Reding, Jet Propulsion Laboratory Director Charles Elachi… and former Vice President Al Gore.
Cerf then literally jumped up on the stage to give an emotional speech thanking all those who had helped him during his stretch at ICANN. At times moved to tears, Cerf was keen to highlight the "resilience and latency of an organization that's now had 3 CEOs and will, by the end of the week, have a third President." "This shows that ICANN doesn't need any single individual to function," Cerf concluded.
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