News for and about the Internet2 community

[Lauren Rotman <>]

Internet2 Richard Rose Award Honors David Lassner for Exemplary  
Contributions to Advanced Networking in Support of K20 Community

Lassner recognized as a leader in bringing next-generation networking  
to Hawaii's statewide education community

Arlington, VA – April 27, 2010 – Internet2 today announced at its  
annual Spring Member Meeting that David Lassner, vice president and  
chief information officer of the University of Hawaii, has been  
honored with this year's Richard Rose Award, an annual award  
established to recognize extraordinary individual contributions that  
extend the reach of advanced networking into the K20 community.

Lassner has committed a lifetime of effort to extending the reach of  
advanced networking to Hawaii's educational community, blazing the  
trail to establish state-of-the-art connections throughout the  
Hawaiian Islands as well as from Hawaii to the rest of the world. He  
has played multiple influential roles, from the University of Hawaii's  
first and only chief information officer, to the Chair of Hawaii's  
Broadband Task Force, and has championed a wide range of broadly  
inclusive efforts that deliver the benefits of advanced network  
services and applications to Hawaii's statewide education community  
and beyond.

“David's remarkable work in Hawaii has been an inspiration for his  
colleagues. His leadership and inclusion of a diverse educational  
community in Hawaii, bringing together K12 schools, community  
colleges, cultural and scientific organizations, with the research  
community, clearly demonstrates that a research and education (R&E)  
network increases in value when it is so broadly inclusive. His  
efforts both in the Pacific Islands and among Pacific Rim countries'  
R&E communities has made Hawaii an essential part of the global R&E  
fabric,” said Louis Fox, director of the Internet2 K20 initiative.

Lassner was a co-founder of the Hawaii Educational Networking  
Consortium, which for two decades has brought to one table public  
higher education, public K12 education and private education in  
Hawaii.  He was principal investigator for the National Science  
Foundation “Hawaii Education and Research Network” (HERN) award, which  
explored the use of Internet technologies to reform educational  
practice at all levels statewide. The HERN project resulted in one of  
the first educational Ethernet-over-coax deployments in the country,  
while providing teachers at all levels from all islands with some of  
their first exposure and training in the use of these technologies for  
teaching and learning.

Challenged by Hawaii’s geographic isolation, Lassner has formed  
important alliances with domestic and international partners that  
currently enable Hawaii’s K20 and research communities to share more  
than 20 gigabits per second of submarine long-haul capacity.  Lassner  
has worked tirelessly to ensure that global R&E networking reaches not  
only Hawaii’s most advanced research facilities, including  
observatories on the summits of Mauna Kea and Haleakala and the Hawaii  
Institute for Marine Biology, but also every community college and  
every one of the more than 200 public schools in Hawaii through their  
participation as Internet2 Sponsored Education Group Participants  
(SEGP).

Lassner’s early engagements with educational networking beyond Hawaii  
included co-organizing the first K12 Networking Workshops at the  
Internet Society’s INET meetings during the 1990s, and helping  
organize and manage the judging for the Advanced Network & Services  
original ThinkQuest contests, through which K12 students around the  
world created educational websites and were awarded more than $1  
million dollars in scholarships each year.

"In addition to David's capacity to synthesize information and  
translate it into real life applications that benefit individuals and  
society, what has always impressed me is his ability to get along with  
people. David is always willing to listen and problem solve for the  
benefit of the whole,” said Hae Okimoto, director of academic  
technologies at the University of Hawaii. “Therefore, I've observed  
others looking to him as a mediator or arbitrator in tough situations.  
This quality, in addition to his incredible capacity for work, has  
helped the University of Hawaii and the state participate actively in  
advanced networking."

As one of the few university chief information officers with direct  
responsibility to network the state’s community colleges, Lassner has  
ensured gigabit speed connections to every community college in  
Hawaii.  Lassner’s current networking proposals would move Hawaii to  
the forefront by providing direct fiber connections with gigabit  
connectivity to every public school and every public library in  
Hawaii, provisioning all of Hawaii’s community colleges and their  
education centers on all islands with 10Gbps connections, and  
solidifying support for domestic research connectivity between Hawaii  
and the U.S. mainland.

Throughout his career, Lassner has leveraged his participation in  
national and international advanced network collaborations to maximize  
global access in Hawaii.  He continues to be a thought leader and  
keystone in a myriad of collaborative efforts to bring the benefits of  
advanced network services and applications to every individual within  
Hawaii's K20 community and beyond.

“We’re a small state with a unique geography that creates many  
networking challenges,” Lassner commented, “so it has always seemed  
natural to try to work together within Hawaii and leverage what goes  
on beyond our shores.  I’ve been truly blessed with wonderful  
colleagues in Hawaii, around the country and around the world who have  
shared the vision of seamless educational opportunity for all,  
empowered by advanced networks.”

Presented by the Internet2 K20 Initiative, in which Richard Rose  
played an early and influential leadership role, the award focuses on  
efforts to extend advanced networking and applications from research  
universities to the broadest education community, including primary  
and secondary schools, community colleges, libraries, museums, zoos,  
aquariums, performing arts and cultural centers, America's "anchor  
institutions." Mr. Rose was the executive director of the University  
of Maryland Academic Telecommunications System (UMATS) and USM Office  
IT, when he passed away in January, 2007.

The award was presented on April 27, 2010, at the Spring 2010  
Internet2 Member Meeting held in Arlington, Virginia. For more on the  
Richard Rose Award, visithttp://www.internet2.edu/rose/.

Contact:
Lauren Rotman

202.331.5345