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Paul CeruzziPauk Ceruzzi
Internet Alley: High Technology in Tysons Corner, 1945-now

Wednesday, March 4 , 2009
Building 3 Auditorium - 11:00 AM
(Coffee at 10:30 AM)

Much of the world's Internet management and governance takes place in a corridor extending west from Washington, DC, through northern Virginia toward Washington Dulles International Airport. Much of the United States' military planning and analysis takes place here as well. At the center of that corridor is Tysons Corner - an unincorporated suburban crossroads once dominated by dairy farms and gravel pits. Today, the government contractors and high-tech firms - companies like DynCorp, CACI, Verisign, and SAIC - that now populate this corridor have created an "Internet Alley" off the Washington Beltway. Dr. Ceruzzi examines this compact area of intense commercial development and describes its transformation into a rival to Silicon Valley and a driving force of the nation's technological economy.

Paul E. Ceruzzi is Curator of aerospace electronics and computing at the National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC. He has authored several books on the history of computing and related topics including "Internet Alley: High Technology in Tysons Corner, 1945-2005" (MIT Press, 2008). Dr. Ceruzzi attended Yale University and the University of Kansas, from which received a Ph.D. in American studies in 1981. Before joining the staff of the National Air and Space Museum, he taught history of technology at Clemson University.

IS&T Colloquium Committee Host: Jim Fischer