Broadband Breakfast on July 1, 2026 - 1977-2026: Computing, the Internet and Artificial Intelligence
The final installment of Broadband Breakfast's three-part series covers 1977–2026, when computing, the internet, and artificial intelligence reshaped American life.
At the 200th anniversary of American Independence 50 years ago, the personal computer was a hobbyist's curiosity. Today, artificial intelligence drafts our emails, writes our code, and reshapes entire industries overnight. To close out Broadband Breakfast's series celebrating 150 Years of American Telecommunications, we trace the breathtaking arc from the Apple II computer, the breakup of “Ma Bell,” the transition from the ARPANET to the commercial Internet, including the World Wide Web, the smartphone revolution and the generative AI boom now testing the limits of policy, infrastructure and even human imagination. Key inflection points along the way include the 1996 Telecommunications Act, the dot-com era, the rise of broadband and big tech, net neutrality battles and the explosion of large language models in the ChatGPT era. Our experts will debate what this fast-paced half-century tells us about innovation cycles, regulatory lag, and the next 150 years of American Telecommunications.
About the In-Person Event
Broadband Breakfast
About the 3-Part Webcast
Broadband Breakfast
Panelists
- Vint Cerf, Vice President and Chief Internet Evangelist, Google
- Other panelists have been invited
- Drew Clark (moderator), CEO and Publisher, Broadband Breakfast
Vinton G. Cerf is vice president and Chief Internet Evangelist for Google. He contributes to global policy development and continued spread of the Internet. Widely known as one of the "Fathers of the Internet," Cerf is the co-designer of the TCP/IP protocols and the architecture of the Internet. He has served in executive positions at MCI, the Corporation for National Research Initiatives and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and on the faculty of Stanford University.
Breakfast Media LLC CEO Drew Clark has led the Broadband Breakfast community since 2008. An early proponent of better broadband, better lives, he initially founded the Broadband Census crowdsourcing tool to collect and verify broadband data left unpublished by the Federal Communications Commission. As CEO and Publisher, Clark presides over the leading media community advocating for higher-capacity internet everywhere through topical, timely and intelligent coverage. Clark also served as head of the Partnership for a Connected Illinois, a state broadband initiative.
