Hosted by Verisign Labs, the Distinguished Speaker Series brings Internet technology experts and the technical community together for networking and sharing information.

The January 18, 2013, forum topic will be “Internet Past, Present and Future,” a long-view look at the evolution of the Internet and some opportunities for shaping its trajectory into the 21st and 22nd Centuries. Vinton G. Cerf has served as vice president and chief Internet evangelist for Google since October 2005. In this role, he is responsible for identifying new enabling technologies to support the development of advanced, Internet-based products and services from Google. Cerf is the former senior vice president of Technology Strategy and Architecture and Technology for MCI. Widely known as one of the “Fathers of the Internet,” Cerf is the co-designer of the TCP/IP protocols and the architecture of the Internet.

In December 1997, President Clinton presented the U.S. National Medal of Technology to Cerf and his colleague, Robert E. Kahn, for founding and developing the Internet. For their work on the Internet protocols, Kahn and Cerf were named the recipients of the 2004 ACM Alan M. Turing award, which is sometimes called the “Nobel Prize of Computer Science.” In November 2005, President George Bush awarded Cerf and Kahn the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award given by the United States to its citizens.