Mike Jensen: Good evening ladies and gen­tle­man. I’m real­ly sor­ry I could­n’t be here in per­son this evening, but unfor­tu­nate­ly cir­cum­stances are against me. However I am deeply hon­ored to be part of this year’s inductees into the Internet Hall of Fame and the twenty-fifth anniver­sary of the Internet Society, an orga­ni­za­tion that has done so much to fur­ther the goals of an open and broadly-available Internet. I think we have a long way to go still. We only have about about half the pop­u­la­tion con­nect­ed in the world. So I hope it does­n’t take anoth­er twenty-five years for the rest of the world to be con­nect­ed, but I’m very excit­ed about the new tech­nol­o­gy devel­op­ment and the new strate­gies that are emerg­ing to bridge the dig­i­tal divide. 

In accept­ing this award I’d real­ly like to voice my deep appre­ci­a­tion and sup­port for the work that I’ve done from my fam­i­lies, my friends, and my col­leagues around the world who put up with my almost con­stant trav­el and tin­ker­ing with var­i­ous com­put­er sys­tems over the years. So please accept my hum­ble grat­i­tude for this award, and I look for­ward to con­tin­u­ing with our efforts to extend the Internet to every­one on the plan­et. I thank you.