Larry Irving, former head of the National Telecommunications & Information Administration (NTIA) is among 11 inductees to the Internet Society's Hall of Fame.
He will be inducted Friday (Sept. 27) at a ceremony in San Jose, Costa Rica.
Related: Q&A with Larry Irving
“The Internet's design has always enabled people to see a problem, and get to work on solving it,” said Andrew Sullivan, Internet Society president of the new class. “This year's inductees have given us all great gifts of their creative approaches to issues they saw on the Internet. We can take inspiration from them to tackle the next round of challenges."
The society credits Irving with being "a driving force behind the identification of the Digital Divide [he is credited with coining the term] in the U.S., igniting global interest in the issue."
At NTIA, Irving was the top communications policy adviser to President Bill Clinton, Vice President Al Gore, and Commerce Secretary Ron Brown.
"Larry led the focus on the digital divide and has remained steadfast in his concern about the issue and the impact of lack of connectivity for half the planet’s population for the past quarter century," said Clayton Banks, co-founder of Silicon Harlem.
Irving was also a member of the Obama-Biden transition team on communications issues.
