By Lena LaJoy
On Wednesday Oct. 21, at 4:30 p.m., Glenn Ricart (‘80) stood in front of students, staff and friends in the Edward St. John Learning and Teaching Center and recounted how he contributed to the creation of the internet here in College Park, Maryland.
The Division of IT, Division of Research and the College of Computer, Mathematical and Natural Sciences hosted the event, “When UMD Was the Center of the Internet.” During the hour and a half long event, Ricart, the former head of academic computing and network at UMD, spoke about his experience before being joined for a Q&A.
Ricart spoke about UMD’s achievements in regards to the internet. He said UMD was the first All-Internet-Protocol Campus, the first All-Fiber Campus and the first campus to standardize on the Internet Protocol. Being an all-IP campus means IP addresses that allow communication connected the campus’s internet and an All-Fiber Campus refers to servers that allow communication across distances.
“Maryland was one of the very first wired campuses for data to be able to do things, and it’s something that Maryland has just continued to accelerate on, which I am very pleased to see,” Ricart said.
Ricart said despite all the other achievements related to the internet, UMD did not completely become the center of the internet until it was one of the schools that earned access to five supercomputers in 1985.
Ricart said the supercomputer network, SURAnet, allowed different organizations to connect to the supercomputer even if they were not in the same state as the technology. Because UMD had access to this network, other universities connected through Maryland’s campus network to access the internet.
“We were the center of the internet, we were making it happen,” Ricart said. “It was our network operations center, we had grants … and we really made this happen.”
Jeffrey Hollingsworth, vice president and chief information officer at UMD, said College Park has a long history of firsts besides being the center of the internet. He said the first telegraph ever sent passed through College Park and the Wright brothers trained the original military pilots at the College Park Airport.
“A generation later we founded the internet here and now we have quantum computing … taking off from our campus into our discovery district,” Hollingsworth said.
Varun Singh, a senior computer science and neuroscience double major, said he heard about the event from the CMNS mailing list and was intrigued to hear more about UMD’s role in the internet.
“This research is the reason we are all here, we have to preserve knowledge and with that knowledge we can build new things and innovate,” Singh said.
Roan Parrish, an instructor in the Science, Technology and Society program, said she knew a little about UMD’s history with the internet, but wanted to learn more after a previous student in her capstone class struggled to find information on the topic.
Parrish said she hoped to learn more about the university she teaches at and be able to educate her students about what she learned at the event.
“We spend so much time here and we dedicate so many resources to living and working together here and knowing our history really helps us understand ourselves,” Parrish said.
After Ricart talked about UMD’s role in creating the internet, he welcomed two people he worked with on the internet project, Louis Mamakos (‘81) and Michael Petry, for a Q&A. Hollingsworth led the discussion and asked their opinions on the modern internet, AI and memories from their experiences.
University System of Maryland Chancellor Emeritus and former UMD President William “Brit” Kirwan, who first hired Ricart post-grad, credited Ricart with UMD’s success in starting the internet and thanked him for his work at the university.
“Glenn miraculously transformed the computing environment at the University of Maryland from a wasteland to a national leader,” Kirwan said.
Featured Image: The “When UMD Was the Center of the Internet” event on Oct. 21. Photo by Duncan Holditch.