CENIC and the California Research and Education Network (CalREN) In a series of meetings in 1996, technology leaders from Stanford University, the University of California, the California State University, the California Institute of Technology, and the University of Southern California and its Information Sciences Institute articulated a common vision for the innovative use of communications technology to deliver the next generation of data communications services. Fundamental to this vision is the existence of an advanced wide area communications infrastructure serving all institutions of higher education in California, linked seamlessly with the emerging national advanced network infrastructure. In 1997, the Corporation for Education Network Initiatives in California (CENIC) was incorporated as a not-for-profit organization to represent the common interests of California’s higher education academic and research communities in achieving robust, high-capacity, next-generation Internet communications services. CENIC’s leadership was drawn from California higher education institutions and information technology industries. The first objective of CENIC was to facilitate realization of the California Research and Education Network (CalREN), a high-bandwidth, high-capacity Internet network specifically designed to meet the unique requirements of CENIC’s research and higher education member institutions. For a detailed recap of CENIC’s genesis, watch an eight-minute video (https://youtu.be/AH5chxLb-VQ) that was prepared for CENIC’s 20th anniversary in 2017 and features some of the founders as well as some current researchers using CalREN.
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