ICANN Tribute to Dr. Vint Cerf
I've known Vint for decades, and he's done two things I'm going to mention.
First, from A personal note of December, 2006:
It is two years since the Boxing Day Tsunami. One affected area was the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, which have restricted access, both to protect tribal populations, and because a semi-clandestine Indian national security asset is located there. Médecins Sans Frontières and Oxfam delivered relief supplies and emergency medical supplies for tribal populations to Port Blair, where it was held by the Indian Army. By January 6th I was able to thank Dr. Vint Cerf, who I know in a professional context, and who was in India the previous week. Dr. Cerf had relayed my concerns to the staff of the President of India, Dr. Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam, and to the US Ambassador to India, Dr. David C. Mulford. A few days later the MSF/Oxfam shipments were released from the Army hold and distributed to the tribal people who survived the tsunami.
Second, during the Rome ICANN meeting, Vint had the sense to come over to the bar where Amadeu and I were having a beer. He sat down and asked what we were plotting. It wasn't a silly question, as it happened, we were putting together the core of what became the first "cultural" top level domain proposal for Catalan, and therefore, for Catalonia. It has been live for over a year now at .cat. Vint didn't panic because Amadeu and I were overthrowing Spanish and French state monopolies over Catalan and its speakers as an identified group, and creating the precedent for future escapes from the confines of the existing states regimes.
