When did you go online? How do you see other inventors making the most of the internet?
As an inventor, what have you discovered to be
the biggest benefits to being online?
Interview questions submitted by the CIRCUITS column of the New
York Times on June 6, 1999.
When did you go online?
EMEAGWALI: I was online in 1974. I am a computer scientist and an early settler in cyberspace. In the 1970's, the Internet was a private playground of a few academic researchers. In the 1970's, we had not invented computer screens and we printed words on teletypes. You could not find photos, music, and videos on the Internet. We had few hundred domain names. Therefore, it was not necessary to have .com or .edu appended to our e-mail addresses.
In 1987, I was spending 14 hours a day, seven days a week on the NSFnet, the predecessor of the Internet. I was using Telnet (remote login) and FTP (file transfer protocol) to connect and transfer files from a dozen national laboratories and supercomputer centers (such as the Los Alamos National Laboratory, the Argonne National Laboratory, and the National Center for Supercomputer Applications. See http://emeagwali.com/usa/michigan/brain-to-brain-detroit-free-press.html or http://emeagwali.com/usa/michigan/national_science_foundation_merit_network.html) or the book History of the Internet (www.historyoftheinternet.com).
Many people thought that I was out of my mind for spending so much time on the Internet. I succeeded in using Internet to reach 65,000 processors and perform the world's fastest computation of 3.1 billion (3,100,000,000) calculations per second. I won the 1989 Gordon Bell Prize, received lots of publicity, people realized that there was a method to my madness.
Today, my online activities are focused on my web site. The web is a cheap and efficient means of distributing information. Each day, I transmit the equivalent of 3,000 feature articles.
As an inventor, what have you discovered to be the biggest
benefits to being online?
I have many other good reasons to stay online. The Internet has put me in touch with new audiences. On a typical day, I receive an e-mail from a small African town or from a 12-year-old writing school report on my work or from an inventor seeking advice.
This increased accessibility is both good and bad. It is good because I stay in touch with diverse people which leads to cross-fertilization of ideas. It is bad because it fragments my time, increases my anxiety level and forces me to respond to many e-mail that are unrelated to what I do. People seek my advice on their personal problems and my wife has jokingly nicknamed me "Dear Abby."
The input that I receive from my web site visitors has been very helpful. I know who is visiting my web site, how often and what they are most interested in.
Surprisingly, my largest audience is not other inventors. It is the 70 million K-12 students that send me the most e- mail.
I learned that the Internet enables me to compete at the same level as Thomas Edison or Alexander Graham Bell. My web site makes my life and work to be equally accessible as that of Albert Einstein. The Internet is an equalizer for lesser known scientists and inventors.
I learned that people's biases and prejudices affect how they interpret my work. The newsgroups that discuss my work the most are not invention-related. I am most frequently mentioned in forums like alt.flame.niggers or alt.satanism. Often a writer might post a message similar to the following recent one:
"Can any of you name a smart nigger scientist or thinker? None exist, and if you can name one, e-mail me and prove it."Someone will respond by alerting the newsgroups about my web site and debates about the value of my work will continue for several days.
How do you see other inventors making the most of the internet?
Patent searches can now be conducted over the Internet. Inventors could also e-mail their work, including illustrations, to their patent attorney who might be living in a distant city.
The Internet is the glue that holds the virtual community of inventors. However, inventors must understand that the Internet is audience is fragmented by their special interests. As a Nigerian-born scientist living in the United States, I have my African, African-American, and K-12 students audiences and so on.
The inventors that will derive the most benefits from the Internet are those that use it in an integrated way. It is not enough to post text, photographs and illustrations. An inventor may need to post audio and video.
YES, I WOULD LIKE TO POST MY COMMENTS.
Click on emeagwali.com for more information.
