Distinguished Lecture: CONNECTIVITY is a thing, is THE thing

Live stream: https://teams.microsoft.com/meet/293774839476910?p=sQsRo5sefWp7AvHN1N 

Abstract: The most important new fact about the human condition is that we are now all suddenly connected. And I mean SUDDENLY, billions of users since October 1969. I'll tell stories about the overwhelming impacts of packet switching connectivities including Arpanet, Alohanet, Ethernet, Internet, World Wide Web, and (of course) artificial intelligence (AI). The impacts include pathologies, disruptions, reversals, and unprecedented reductions in global poverty. I will reveal certain secrets, like why the first Ethernet ran at 2.94 Mbps. Connectivity is full of surprises, so be ready.

Bio: Robert Melancton (Bob) Metcalfe is an engineer-entrepreneur now Research Affiliate at the MIT Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL). He is Emeritus Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) at The University of Texas at Austin. He is an Internet pioneer best known for leading invention, standardization, and commercialization of Ethernet (1973), for which he received the million-dollar 2022 ACM A.M. Turing Award. In 1979 he founded 3Com Corporation (1979), the billion-dollar Silicon Valley Internet startup, acquired by HP (2010). In the 1980s he grew 3Com. In the 1990s he was Publisher of IDG/InfoWorld. In the 2000s he was a venture capitalist at Polaris. In the 2010s he was Professor of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at UTAustin. In the 2020s he starting his sixth career, computational engineering of geothermal energy. And since 1995 he's been defending Metcalfe's Law (V~N^2).