Glenn Ricart (born August 1, 1949[1]) is a computer scientist.[2]
He was influential in the development of the Internet (ARPANET) going back to 1969 and early implementation of the TCP/IP protocol. Since then he has been active in technology and business as well as donating his time to philanthropic and educational movements.
Ricart set up what was probably the first Internet Exchange point, the FIX (Federal Internet Exchange) in College Park, Maryland which interconnected the original federal TCP/IP networks and was extended to form MAE-East.
Ricart led the team that wrote the code for the first implementation of TCP/IP for the IBM PC. He then secured financial support from IBM for writing the code, and, in addition to its free availability to the education community, arranged for IBM to sell it as IBM's entry into the field (the product was called PC/IP by IBM).
He led the team that developed the OSPF reference implementation at the University of Maryland, including Louis Mamakos and Mike Petry.
He also led the team that provided and operated the routers for the first NSFNet backbone.
From 1971 to 1982, he was a lead software engineer at the National Institutes of Health, developing the first e-mail program for the TOPS-10 (PDP-10) operating system in 1973. From 1982 to 1993, he headed academic computing at the University of Maryland. In 1984, it became the first campus to adopt TCP/IP campus-wide and use it to connect all academic minicomputers and mainframes.
In 1985 to 1989, he was instrumental in bringing the Internet to South America, helping to bring the first BITNET and Internet connections to Brazil in partnership with CNPq, Argentina via the University of Buenos Aires, and Chile by first connecting REUNA. He instructed the first networking workshop for Latin and South America (ESLARED) and several succeeding workshops.
In October 2009 Ricart was named president and CEO of National LambdaRail, the high-speed networking platform owned by the U.S. research and education community.[4]
On September 7, 2010, he announced his resignation from National LambdaRail due to strategic differences with the board.[5]
Ricart is a co-founder of US Ignite, a nonprofit organization launched in 2012 with support from the National Science Foundation and numerous public and private stakeholders.[6] US Ignite's mission is to foster the development of broadband-intensive applications with an eye toward "smart city" and other public good uses.[7]
He previously served on the boards of the Internet Society, BITNET, CACI, First USA Financial Services, Santa Cruz Operation, and NASULGC. He is the CTO of Artkick - a service that displays artwork on televisions.