The Internet Hall of Fame is an annual awards program that has been established by the Internet Society in 2012 to celebrate it’s 20-year anniversary. The Internet Hall of Fame publicly recognize a distinguished and select group of visionaries, leaders and luminaries who have made significant contributions to the development and advancement of the global Internet.

The inductees are segmented in three groups : pioneers, global connectors and innovators. The Internet history revolves around four distinct aspects :

• technological evolution (ARPANET and related technologies, current research about scaling, performance and higher-level functionalty)
• operational aspects of a global and complex operational infrastructure
• social aspects with a broad community of internauts working together to create and evolve the technology
• commerzialisation aspects resulting in an extremely effective transition of reasearch results into a broadly deployed and available information infratsructure

The Internet Society convenes an Internet Hall of Fame Advisory Board of esteemed Internet industry professionals to vote on the annual inductees. Inaugural inductees were announced on April 23, 2012 at the Internet Society’s Global INET conference in Geneva, Switzerland.

The Internet Society is the trusted independent source for Internet information and thought leadership from around the world. With its principled vision and substantial technological foundation, the Internet Society promotes open dialogue on Internet policy, technology, and future development among users, companies, governments, and foundations. Working with its members and Chapters around the world, the Internet Society enables the continued evolution and growth of the Internet for everyone.