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Vint Cerf

Vint Cerf is a Father of the Internet and a technology innovator. He is the Chief Internet Evangelist at Google, Inc.

Twenty years have passed since the founding of the National Cristina Foundation. How much has happened in those two decades! It is common to think of NCF as devoted to the use of technology to improve the quality of life for people with various disabilities and the disadvantaged. But looking at this in a larger context, NCF’s work is part of a broad spectrum of activity designed to improve the quality of life and the abilities of any individual.

Every astronomer who uses the Internet to interact with and control a telescope far away is using both the Internet and the telescope to enhance dramatically normal human eyesight. My wife, Sigrid, uses a cochlear implant to repair her inner ear, damaged by spinal meningitis at age three. Millions of people use stereo headsets to improve the quality of the sound they hear. Computers of all kinds but especially portable laptops have become all-purpose tools that can be adapted to enhance human abilities. The brilliant Stephen Hawking uses a laptop to speak, overcoming his inability to do so on his own. Kids with physical coordination problems use laptops to write, making the task far easier to accomplish than with traditional pencil and paper. Already we are seeing the shape of things to come: smaller personal digital assistants, speech understanding software, more neural implants to overcome spinal or optical disabilities, portable global positioning satellite receivers. Microelectronics and programmable devices are the basis for these miracles and the National Cristina Foundation has been the agent to repurpose computers to become agents of change and enhancement. It has become an international model for others to harness the power of technology to adapt to and improve everyone’s abilities, especially those challenged in particular ways.

We celebrate two decades of dedication, innovation and international collaboration at NCF and wish for all its adherents another 20 years of mounting successes. Technology will continue to provide the National Cristina Foundation with new ways to achieve its goals, improving life for everyone.