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These days, everyone uses the Internet. We surf it to learn, contact government agencies, and buy stuff.

But let me take you back to the late 1980s. At the time, the Internet was only for academics and the government. Not for ordinary people like you and me. And using the internet as we do today was a distant and very radical idea.

And it would have stayed this way, had it not been for the vision of a woman who played a crucial role in shaping the internet as we know it today: Susan Estrada.

About Susan Estrada

Susan Estrada was born with a curiosity that drove her to explore the world around her. Her father was a professor in Chemistry and her mother was a librarian.

Few people know that her initial career path wasn’t in technology at all. Before making her mark on the internet, Estrada began her professional life in marine biology. Her early work involved studying the behavior of marine mammals, particularly seals.

It wasn’t until later that she obtained a Master’s degree in Information and Computer Science from the University of California, San Diego. This pivot would ultimately lead her to play a crucial role in the development of the commercial internet.

Her contribution to the Internet

Susan Estrada was an Internet pioneer who built Internet infrastructure way before it was “cool”.

In 1987, she founded the California Education and Research Federation Network, also known as CERFnet. This was in effect the first Internet Service Provider.

With CERFnet, she helped educational institutions, businesses, and government agencies connect access the Internet.

Through her leadership and collaboration with PSInet and UUnet, Susan helped form the interconnection enabling the first commercial Internet traffic via the Commercial Internet Exchange (CIX).

This was a pivotal moment in the commercialization of the Internet, and it set the stage for the explosive growth that would follow in the 1990s.

The power of collaboration

Susan Estrada did not shy way from collaborating with other innovative players. One of her earliest commercial customers was a small startup named Qualcomm, now an industry leader in telecom. She also made some bold choices like purchasing equipment from another startup named Cisco, which provided them with a big boost: 10% of their gross revenue for 1988.

Two Fun Facts

CERFnet was called CERF and not SURF because, as Estrada highlighted in her induction speech for the Internet Hall Of Fame, “those darn people in the Netherlands took the real “surf” from us in California.”

Susan and her colleagues also wanted to humanize the Internet. In fact, they created a female cartoon character called Captain Internet to help them do so.

“I like to think of myself as an innovator and collaborator – building the commercial scale Internet that our academic and businesses customers wanted.” – Susan Estrada

Advocating for women in tech

Susan Estrada’s impact goes beyond the technical aspects of networking. Throughout her career, she has been a strong advocate for women in technology, breaking barriers and serving as a role model for future generations.

Her leadership in a male-dominated field during the early days of the internet serves as an inspiring example of breaking barriers and paving the way for future generations of women in tech.

She actively works to ensure that women’s achievements are recognized and celebrated, helping to counteract history’s tendency to overlook women’s role in technological advancements. By doing so, she not only honors past achievements but also creates a more inclusive narrative for the future.

Her legacy

CERFnet didn’t just provide internet access; it helped democratize it. Susan Estrada’s work ensured that the internet would not remain confined to a small group of users but would grow into a global phenomenon. Her contributions were instrumental in creating the backbone of what we now take for granted: universal access to the Internet.

She was inducted into the Internet Hall of Fame in 2014.

So, the next time you surf the Internet, thank Susan Estrada for making that happen.

Vint Cerf is often regarded as the ‘father of the Internet.’ But did you know that the Internet has a mother, too?

Let me tell you about Radia Perlman. Without her Spanning Tree Protocol (STP), the Internet would be a whole lot buggier and slower.

Scroll down to read her story.

About Radia Perlman

Radia Perlman was born in Portsmouth, Virginia, in 1951. Growing up, she had no problems with math and science. This is not strange considering that both her parents worked as engineers: her father worked on radar, and her mother worked as a computer programmer.

However, it took a programming class in high school to get her interested in computers. From there, things developed quickly and positively: during her bachelor’s at MIT, she developed a child-friendly version of the programming language LOGO that allowed children as young as 3 years old to program their own robots.

Her contribution to the Internet

Radia Perlman is best known for her invention of the Spanning Tree Protocol (STP) while working for Digital Equipment Corporation in 1985.

STP allows a network to deliver data reliably by making it possible to design the network with redundant links. This setup provides automatic backup paths if an active link fails and turns off the links that are not part of the tree. This leaves a single, active path between any pair of network nodes.

More recently, she invented the TRILL protocol to correct some of the shortcomings of spanning trees, allowing Ethernet to make optimal use of bandwidth.

Before STP, only computers that belonged to the same network could communicate with each other. Radia’s “magic box” made it possible to communicate between networks as well. In that sense, it is a backbone for a reliable and functioning internet.

Inventing it was kind of a funny story

She invented it, literally, on a Friday and spent the next Monday and Tuesday documenting it. Then, she spent the rest of the week writing a poem about her ‘tree,’ which she called an “Algorhyme.”

Implementation turned out to be so simple that engineers would not need to ask a single question.

“The kind of diversity that I thing really matters isn’t skin shade or body shape but different ways of thinking.” – Radia Perlman

But wait, there’s more…

Like Marian Croak, Radia Perlman has more than 200 patents in her name. About 40 stem from her time at Sun Microsystems in the late 1990s.

Beyond STP and TRILL, Perlman has contributed significantly to network security. She has worked on innovative concepts in cryptography and network robustness, influencing the development of secure communication protocols.

Her work on the design of security systems helped lay the foundation for the safe exchange of data on the Internet.

So, the next time you wonder how you can surf the web without errors, thank Radia Perlman.

What’s with the quote?

Radia Perlman has spoken openly about the lack of diversity in tech and the importance of creating more inclusive environments. Despite her groundbreaking contributions, she often encountered subtle biases and societal expectations that made it harder for women to be taken seriously in technical roles.

She has also often highlighted that diversity isn’t just a matter of fairness. According to her it is crucial for innovation. Diverse teams bring different perspectives, which can lead to better problem-solving and more creative solutions.

She has argued that the tech industry misses out on great ideas and talent when it lacks diversity, reinforcing the notion that inclusivity is essential for technological progress.

Her legacy

In addition to the 200+ patents, there are many children’s books and about 20 books on various STEM-related topics. Perlman has also taught courses at the University of Washington, Harvard University, MIT, and Texas A&M and has been the keynote speaker at events all over the world.

She was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering in 2019 for contributions to Internet routing and bridging protocols. She was inducted into the Internet Hall of Fame in 2014 and into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2016.

She also received lifetime achievement awards from USENIX in 2006 and from the Association for Computing Machinery’s SIGCOMM in 2010.

As of 2022, she was a Fellow at Dell Technologies.