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Internet Pioneers Honoured at ISOCNZ Inaugural Fellowship Awards

ISOCNZ (The Internet Society of NZ Inc) has honoured three key pioneers of the Internet in New Zealand by awarding them its inaugural Fellowships.

Fellowships have been established so that the Society can "recognise
members of the Internet industry who have made an outstanding
contribution to the development of the Internet in New Zealand or the
Society." Awardees do not have to be members of the Society, and
Richard Naylor (Wellington) is the first non-member to become a Fellow
of the Society. Two Society members John Houlker (Hamilton) and John
Hine (Wellington) are the other inaugural Fellows.
The Fellowships were announced at ISOCNZ’s recent annual conference,
"Face to Face" held in Wellington and by video broadcast to Sky City in
Auckland.
John Houlker
John’ principal legacy from the Internet’s early days in New Zealand
was that he provided the key early linkages between Tuia, the
consortium set up to manage the New Zealand Internet backbone and the
US-based Internet services while these were provided by the US
Government.
He negotiated an arrangement with PACCOM for 50% subsidy for NSA
money for a 19.2K link from New Zealand to Hawaii, in 1989.After the
link (initially 9.6 K) was installed, he provided the main driving
force at Waikato University for the services required for the New
Zealand Internet gateway.He also played a key role in ensuring that
NZGate could meet the needs of other users such as DSIR who used non-IP
protocols in the early days. When, from 1995 onwards, Internet
connection services passed to the main telecommunications providers, he
negotiated the NZgate connections ensuring a smooth transition.
He acted as the 'go-between' for many of the early users of the
Internet for IP address space, first with IANA and later APNIC.He also
held the official delegation for the .nz ccTLD from 1989 until this was
passed by John to ISOCNZ in 1996.
Richard Naylor
Richard has promoted a vision of a networked city and a networked
world.He has taken every opportunity that provided itself as a means of
extending people's access to networking and the Internet.
As IT services manager for the Wellington City Council, Richard
ensured that he linked the Council to the Internet through Victoria
University as early as 1989, first for the Usenet News services but
later to provide information about Wellington to its own citizens and
the world.This is now recognised internationally as being the first
governmental information in the world to be made available on the
Internet.Because of his work, Wellington had the world's first local
government Gopher server and the first Web site.Wellington also
provided one of the world’s first free nets, providing citizens with
access to Internet services at the cost of a local phone call.
More recently, has been a prime influence on the development of
CityNet, providing access to high speed bandwidth around the Wellington
CBD as a direct challenge to the slow, costly traditional
telecommunications services.
John Hine
John's farsighted policy of extending access to the Internet
services enabled the New Zealand research community to take rapid
advantage of the Waikato University PACCOM link when that became
available, ensuring its financial success from the outset.
John used his connections with North American universities to
introduce the Usenet News service to New Zealand from 1985 onwards,
initially on behalf of the Computer Science community but quickly
extending this to anyone needing access to the service. The Computer
Science Department at Victoria University, of which John was head and
Professor, ran what amounted to a semi-commercial News service over
international PACNET and for several years, providing an invaluable
service to the New Zealand research community.This service, along with
international email services, built the foundation for today's Internet.
From the early 1980s, he played a leading role in establishing the
initial inter-university network which, after 1988, very quickly
evolved into the backbone of the New Zealand Internet until it was
replaced by commercially available services from early 1996.
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© 2000 The Internet Society of New Zealand

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