Marshall takes a look at the future of the internet

The conference started with keynote speaker Selby Wellman, retired Vice President of Cisco Systems and Marshall University Alum. He talked about the Internet's younger days, in the early 1980’s when it was only used privately by computer companies like IBM. In 1994 it started to become mainstream and since then has blown up. Wellman says even to someone in the business it’s still surprising to see how much the internet means to everyone.

“We always had a perception and understanding of what the internet could do for our businesses and we also understood the emphasis it could have on education, but I’m just absolutely blown away by Facebook and all those kinds of things and social media and how fast and rapidly that is happening,” Wellman said.

Wellman illustrated some of the research Cisco and other internet companies are doing that will take the internet to the next step. They’re working on everything from ways to improve education, healthcare and the business world, to ways to prevent crime. Wellman says most people don’t realize the potential the internet still holds.

“The average person on the street absolutely not they won’t grasp that until it happens, but the technology leaders today they understand it and they can see it, like John over at Cisco he has a tremendous grasp. John believes and has for several years that the internet will transform the world,” Wellman said.  

Wellman is speaking of Cisco CEO John Chambers. Wellman says one of the interesting angles is the ability to make smart cities that will have sensors and wireless antennas throughout the city.

“You can’t stop technology when it has more good related to it then bad, the good will always win so it will transform cities entirely in terms of everything, like I said you put a little wireless guy on a light pole I can stop a lot of crime, I really can,” Wellman said.

Wellman also discussed the Internet's benefits to education and research and that's something John Maher can speak to as well.  He's Marshall University’s Vice President for Research.  Marshall is using Internet2 to more efficiently conduct research. Internet2 is soley used by educational institutions and the information is passed much faster than the internet the public uses which is clogged with many other types of websites.

“We were able to obtain a cyber-infrastructure grant to Marshall University, have allowed us to bring Internet2 to the campus and have allowed us to start the process of bring Marshall University in to the modern cyber-infrastructure world,” Maher said.

This was the first cyber-infrastructure conference held at Marshall.