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The Estonian Head of State presented the Order of the Cross of Terra Mariana to Vinton Gray Cerf, one of the creators of the Internet

29.04.2014

The President, Toomas Hendrik Ilves, met today in Kadriorg with the Vice President of Google and one of the creators of the Internet, Vinton Gray Cerf, and presented him with Class I Order of the Cross of Terra Mariana.

On the eve of this year's Independence Day, the Head of State decided to award the high-class decoration of the Republic of Estonia to Vinton Gray Cerf, a computer scientist from the United States of America, and developer of TCP/IP technology, whose research has been used to develop Estonia's e-governance system.

At the meeting in Kadriorg, President Ilves thanked Mr Cerf for opening up and connecting the world for all of us and voiced his wish for the Internet to remain available for everyone in the future, without restrictions.

Cerf, who is considered one of the "the fathers of the Internet" and a technology evangelist, described Estonia's openness as amazing and said: if the Internet was a country, it would be called Estonia.

Last night, President Ilves and the Vice President of Google, Mr Cerf, who arrived for the international Free and Safe Internet for All conference, held a public dialogue for guests of the conference, at which they discussed the development of technology, history of the digital society and future of Internet freedom.

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