A 2017 inductee into the Internet Hall of Fame, Fuchs is a co-founder of BITNET, a cooperative network between the City University of New York and Yale University that provided email, file transfer, and instant messaging to faculty, researchers, and students throughout the world in the early 1980s.
In a recent video interview, Fuchs marveled at the efforts of digital Natives – 20- and 30-somethings who grew up with the Internet – to use those tools to improve their communities.
“The Internet is a wonderful infrastructure,” he said. “It does permit everyone to have a voice, speak up and communicate. To see what some of these young people are doing with the Internet, the kinds of changes that they’re trying to bring to their countries…it’s absolutely inspiring.”
