On the 40th anniversary of what is widely regarded as the origin of the internet, Professor Peter Willetts asks: 'Who really created the internet?'

Peter Willetts will argue the Internet was established by the pioneering work of  peace, human rights and environmental non- governmental organisations (NGOs) in the 1980s.

November 2009 is being widely celebrated as the 40th anniversary of the birth of the Internet, when three computers at different American universities were linked together. However, this Pentagon-funded project, ARPANET, only made minor contributions to the technology of the Internet. The related story that the Internet was planned as an American military command and control system that could survive a nuclear attack is no more than a colourful myth.

The defining aspect of the Internet is the provision of public and open access for global communications. Pioneering computer experts working for NGOs drove the innovation and created an open network. This was achieved before the first web page was written.

Until NGOs intervened, there was no more than a disconnected set of separate government and commercial networks. NGOs made the global connections and gave us the revolution in public communications.

Professor Peter Willetts is a Professor of Global Politics at the Department of International Politics, School of Social Sciences, City University London.

 

Peter Willetts’ main research interests are in the area of international organisations. He is a leading authority on the role of NGOs in international diplomacy and has published two books on this subject: Pressure Groups in the Global System and The Conscience of the World: The Influence of Non-governmental Organisations in the UN System. This lecture arises from research for a new textbook, NGOs in Global Politics: The Construction of Global Governance.