Internet Innovators - Nii Quaynor

 

Welcome to NANOG’s Internet Innovators!

About the Series: Learn more about some of our time's brightest and boldest tech minds. NANOG producer Elizabeth Drolet takes us on a journey through time to the Internet's past, present, and future via discussions with the legendary fathers and mothers of the Internet.

If you watch "Internet Innovators" in Africa, you have Nii Quaynor to thank. 

As the "African Father of the Internet," Quaynor has pioneered internet development and expansion throughout Africa. He is responsible for the first Internet connectivity throughout the continent. 

Quaynor is an Internet Hall of Fame Inductee. Among his many accomplishments, he helped to establish the Computer Science Department of the University of Cape Coast (UCC) in Ghana. He has been a professor there since 1979. Furthermore, he was the first African board member of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) + founded the African Network Operators Group (AfNOG). In 2015, he was awarded the ICANN Multi-stakeholder Ethos Award. In 2007, Quaynor was awarded the Jonathan B. Postel Service Award from the IETF (The Internet Engineering Task Force).

NANOG content producer Elizabeth Drolet had the pleasure of speaking with the impressive yet humble and soft-spoken tech icon. Their online discussion took place from his hotel room on the coast of Africa to Drolet's location in the states. An oversea connection that was made possible by the man himself. 

WATCH NOW to learn:

  • His story
  • The current status of the Internet in Africa (post-pandemic) 
  • "Building the Blockchain" and why he thinks Africa should be a cashless society
  • How to best introduce innovation to a new culture 
  • His next five years
  • + More