Bio
Brian Shawn Cohen
Brian Shawn Cohen is considered one of the fathers of science & technology strategic communications, having founded Technology Solutions, Inc. in 1983. TSI's client list read like an entrepreneurial who's who list of startup technology companies in computing, communication, software, education, and entertainment. For more than a decade he maintained a broad strategic communications partnership with Sony & IBM Corporation providing counsel to dozens of their intrapreneurial new technology divisions. Notably, TSI received the Gold CIPRA award in 1998 for the IBM Deep Blue/Gary Kasparov Chess Match concept and communications program. In 1996, TSI was recognized as the #1 fastest growing agency in the United States. He later sold the company to The McCann Erickson World Group in 1997 and became the Vice Chairman of their technology group.
As a researcher, Cohen created Focus Technology, an organization that provided qualitative research and instituted the RPM model of integrated strategic communications providing ultra-competitive technology clients the ability to quickly discover and leverage their key strengths as well as mitigate their destructive weaknesses.
As a publisher, Cohen was a pioneer in the founding of a number of the first computing publications including Computer Systems News and InformationWeek magazine.
As an investor he now serves as the Vice Chairman of the New York Angels who has invested over $35 million into more than 50 early stage technology companies.
As an educator, Cohen will be opening the AIMS (Applied Internet Media Studies) Program, a college semester program where students will be rigorously trained to use the internet professionally. He also mentors entrepreneur students at NYU and Columbia University.
As a recipient of the Distinguished Alumnus Award, he holds a Masters Degree in Science Communications from Boston University's School of Public Communications and currently serves on the Dean's Board of Directors.
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Encyclopædia Britannica Article
- Internet
Publicly accessible computer network connecting many smaller networks from around the world. It grew out of a U.S. Defense Department program called ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network), established in 1969 with connections between computers at the University of California at Los Angeles, Stanford Research Institute, the University of California-Santa Barbara, and the University of Utah. ARPANET's purpose was to conduct research into computer networking in order to provide a secure and survivable communications system in case of war. As the network quickly expanded, academics and researchers in other fields began to use it as well. In 1971 the first program for sending e-mail over a distributed network was developed; by 1973, the year international connections to ARPANET were made (from Britain and Norway), e-mail represented most of the traffic on ARPANET. The 1970s also saw the development of mailing lists, newsgroups and bulletin-board systems, and the TCP/IP communications protocols, which were adopted as standard protocols for ARPANET in 1982–83, leading to the widespread use of the term Internet. In 1984 the domain name addressing system was introduced. In 1986 the National Science Foundation established the NSFNET, a distributed network of networks capable of handling far greater traffic, and within a year more than 10,000 hosts were connected to the Internet. In 1988 real-time conversation over the network became possible with the development of Internet Relay Chat protocols (see chat). In 1990 ARPANET ceased to exist, leaving behind the NSFNET, and the first commercial dial-up access to the Internet became available. In 1991 the World Wide Web was released to the public (via FTP). The Mosaic browser was released in 1993, and its popularity led to the proliferation of World Wide Web sites and users. In 1995 the NSFNET reverted to the role of a research network, leaving Internet traffic to be routed through network providers rather than NSF supercomputers. That year the Web became the most popular part of the Internet, surpassing the FTP protocols in traffic volume. By 1997 there were more than 10 million hosts on the Internet and more than 1 million registered domain names. Internet access can now be gained via radio signals, cable-television lines, satellites, and fibre-optic connections, though most traffic still uses a part of the public telecommunications (telephone) network. The Internet is widely regarded as a development of vast significance that will affect nearly every aspect of human culture and commerce in ways still only dimly discernible.
- Internet on britannica.com
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