A plaque and a large applause welcomed, this morning at the Polo delle Benedettine in Pisa, the 80th birthday of Professor Luciano Lenzini, the Italian “father” of the Internet. It was he who created the first connection node in our country back in 1986, propelling Italy into the future.
“With the plaque we are presenting today to Prof. Luciano Lenzini, our University does not only want to celebrate his career in the field of computer science, but also to thank him for the contribution he has made to the training of new generations,” commented Prof. Giuseppe Iannacone, Vice-Rector of the University of Pisa, opening the celebrations – There are many young people he has guided from students to researchers who are now engaged in important universities, research centers, and companies.”
“If today the University of Pisa can boast a long and solid tradition in the field of computer science, it is primarily thanks to people like Luciano Lenzini, the architect of that project which on April 30, 1986, allowed Italy to connect to the Internet for the first time – said Prof. Giuseppe Anastasi, the rector’s delegate for digital transition at the University of Pisa – Therefore, it is an honor for us to celebrate this today, and it gives us immense pleasure to have him among our closest collaborators on numerous research projects. In particular, those related to Quantum Computing and Quantum Networking, his new area of interest. Moreover, on Monday, September 23, he will inaugurate his course on these topics within the Computer Engineering degree program.”
Celebrating him were colleagues and the entire governance of the University of Pisa, where Lenzini graduated in Physics in 1969 and taught for nearly thirty years as a Full Professor of Computer Engineering at the Department of Information Engineering. He arrived at the University of Pisa in 1994 after leaving CNUCE, the institute of the National Research Council (CNR) where, since 1970, he had conducted research activities in the field of networking.
“This recognition honors me, and I thank you,” commented Prof. Luciano Lenzini during the award presentation, recalling the steps that led to the first internet connection in Italy. “I am eighty years old, but my enthusiasm for research is the same as always. Today, my hope is that a group can emerge here in Pisa that can work on quantum internet, so as to play the same strategic role it had in the development of the Internet in our country during the 1970s and 1980s.”
In his long and prestigious career, Lenzini worked from 1973 to 1974 on computer networks at the IBM Scientific Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he gained significant experience in the field of architectures and protocols for computer networks, which were in their early stages at the time. He then leveraged this knowledge by directing the design and implementation of RPCNET, the first Italian packet-switched network; STELLA, the first European satellite packet transmission network; and OSIRIDE, the first Italian OSI network. In the late 1970s, he conceived and directed the initiative that led to the operation of the first Internet node in Italy (the fourth in Europe after Norway, the United Kingdom, and Germany). Currently, his research interests include quantum computing and quantum internet.