Andreu Veà is a well known internet pioneer and entrepreneur in Spain. He founded the 4th ISP (in 1994) and later on leaded the internet strategy of Retevision-Auna the second Spanish national telco-carrier which opened the monopoly (hold by Telefonica until that moment 1998). He was involved in launching their ISP, the revolutionary Free Access and the Flat Rate, which doubled the market in less than a year. He is a Telecom Engineer, Electronic Engineer, and holds the first Ph.D. dissertation thesis (2002) focused on the Internet. Which got the attention of Vint Cerf (father of the internet) who encouraged him to follow his research at Stanford (2003). Since then he has been an Invited Scholar at this University and has focused his research on finding internet pioneers around the world. This program has been internationally awarded by ISOC (the Internet Society) which is since 2007 supporting its efforts. Dr Veà has contributed or founded many internet related organizations (www.espanix.net www.catnix.net www.galnix.net www.isoc-es.org ) and has been part of multiple steering committees as the Internet Global Congress or in ISOC. Nowadays he is also International Relations and Networking Director, at La Salle Innovation Park in Spain. And has been elected eminent expert representing Spain at the WSA World Summit Awards (UNESCO).
Since 1994 the author has been collecting the Stories of the Internet pioneers, on digital audio format to preserve it for future generations to know. Wouldn’t it be great to hear Thomas Edison or Graham Bell personal voices today? Designing and creating a huge timeline-sorted, open source repository to make possible browsing among the people who most contributed to the internet. In every single country, same structure and method.
We need unknown stories, the important old e-mails which marked a milestone, group pictures, anecdotal situations, and, most importantly, your financial support to boost this project to preserve our collective internet story. The original goals, the real pioneers of networking are described one by one forming a corpus of seasoned experienced lessons to take in account.
Probably the best summary of this presentation can be found in Vint Cerf’s own words:
“In this dissertation, Andreu Veà blazes a trail for historians to follow. The history and pre-history of the Internet’s creation and evolution will occupy the attention of serious scholars and historians for many years in the future. I am convinced that Dr. Veà’s contribution will represent an important landmark in the field. Understanding the history and rationale for the evolution of infrastructure fills a critical need for planning. One needs to know why things work or do not work and Dr. Veà provides an extraordinary menu of specifics from which many lessons may be drawn. I hope you will find this work as interesting and useful as I have”.
Vint Cerf
Internet Pioneer, Google Internet Chief Evangelist