Michael Silverton
Michael Silverton’s Stanford thesis,
Information Superdriveway: The
Social Informatics of Residential Fiber Optic Computer Networks
was
the
expression of his 1991 vision for a universal high speed symmetric
Ethernet network; available not to just business and government, but to
everyone. The title Information Superdriveway extended early, if
grossly over simplified, analogies of internet-as-roadway connecting everyday
users to the information city streets, regional expressways, and
ultimately the global information superhighway popularized by former
U.S.
Vice President Al Gore. He subsequently co-architected, and built the
world’s first all fiber optic
Ethernet To The Home (ETTH) networks in
Palo
Alto, California in the late 1990s.
Today, the same
Ethernet Passive Optical Network (EPON) technology that
was first deployed in a small south Palo Alto garage, is now being used
to
provide 10 to 100 times faster local internet access to both business
and
residential customers from central Rwanda to developing China.
Fiberhood
Networks was the original
Ethernet First Mile (IEEE 802.3ah) company to
build and operate 10Mbps, 100Mbps, and 1Gbps ETTH technologies in a
fully operational residential context.
Michael also
served as Founding
Director of the
Bay Area Open Access Alliance, one of the first
organizations to introduce and advocate for a U.S. public policy
commitment to “Universal Open Access” and Symmetric Bandwidth for
residential as well as business internet customers by speaking at a
series
of public press conferences and participating on panels such as the
annual
Marin-based Telestructure II conference, sponsored by
Autodesk.
In the
pre-internet era, he also served as Assistant Net Coordinator for San
Diego Net202 Fidonet, a global computer network of BBS operators that
distributed both independent SysOp and Usenet newsgroups through a
global,
volunteer, peer-to-peer dialup network; essentially, a modem-to-modem
precursor “the” internet as we know it, today. Assisting David
Lentz
in San Diego, California, the two kept Net202 running using a
combination
of satellite relays, landline telephone, line-of-site wireless
technologies, DOS, and OS/2 servers in the early to mid
1990s.
Most recently, as a student of the nature of intelligence,
transhumanism,
and a member of the
Methuselah Foundation’s Mprize 300, Michael has turned
his
attention even more so toward the human factors of technological
innovation and diffusion; including participation in Concordia
University
and NASA Ames Interpersonal Human Relations Management research; the
first
double-blind scientific studies to quantify the effect of specific
types
of training upon teams that will eventually participate in complex Mars
missions.
Michael also helped coordinate volunteers to succeed in conducting
the first ever
Space Elevator Games, sponsored by the Spaceward
Foundation. He brings a history of practical foresight,
innovation, and community involvement to his commitment and passion
for
exploring creative, adaptive new architectures of mind, policy, and
technology upon which to build a wholly sustainable human
future.