Networking the world

Internet and Web networks are computer systems developed through interactions between their users. They wouldn't exist without the participation and the contribution of the individuals using them. They are collective works elaborated in a global theater, empowering people, organizations and communities to connect with each others and communicate information and various contents. They are, however, closely related, since their origin, to military and business research activities.

Since the launch of the ARPANET project in 1966 and the creation of NASDAQ, the first electronic stock exchange system in 1971, and even more widely, the invention of the World Wide Web in 1990, computer networks have developed throughout our planet and transmit information covering all kinds of human activities. They led, in their wake, to a panoply of technical innovations and the establishment of specialized infrastructures which propelled new technologies to the top of the global economy and literally transformed our vision of the world and our ways of doing things.

These networks are now important vectors of social, economic and cultural changes, especially through social media, reaching and interrelating each day millions of persons who are making friendships and sharing ideas, thoughts, videos, images, recordings and texts. From local to global, they are generating creative processes that are opening new perspectives for research-development and research-creation. Each of them and all together, they contribute to the viability and the resilience of an expanding planetary network that is showing an incredible vitality and living diversity. It would be a terrible mistake to neglect their actual and potential input to the development of arts and sciences and research programs that are shaping the future of our societies. Our challenge, if any, is to support their development to overcome critical issues in education, health and environment.

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JF