For all those children intentionally getting lower grades to avoid being ridiculed as a "nerd" or a "geek," a just-released iPad app provides an inspiring message – it’s "COOL to be CLEVER" – based on the true story of Edson C. Hendricks, the genius who invented the design for the Internet.
When Hendricks was bullied at school as a youngster, he retreated into an imaginary world where he had machine parts, rather than biological organs and emotions. Years later, as a computer scientist working in IBM’s Cambridge Scientific Center in the early 1970s, Hendricks’ unique ability to "think like a machine" led him to invent VNET, the world’s first "connectionless" computer communications network.
VNET quickly spread to link IBM’s facilities around the world, then spawned other networks using Hendricks’ software, including EARN in Europe, NETNORTH in Canada, and BITNET in the USA. USENET/UUNET and FIDOnet closely mimicked Hendricks’ software. In the early 1980s, this connectionless design became the basis of the new internetworking ("Internet" for short) standards.
Developed by Agio Studios (part of Agio Publishing House of Victoria), COOL to be CLEVER is available as of December 1st on Apple’s App Store (http://bit.ly/CoolToBeClever). The script was written by children’s book author and former teacher Leanne Jones. Now a private investigator, Jones uncovered Hendrick’s role as Internet inventor while interviewing a retired US intelligence officer for a spy novel she was writing. Upon learning about the Edson Hendricks story, she located him now living in San Diego, California.
"Setting my novel-writing aside, I wrote the true COOL story to inspire and encourage children who may feel they are ‘different’ and may be bullied or stigmatized," said Jones. "They may have important ideas that will change society like the Internet has."
The app includes up-to-date bullying prevention tips and research provided by the Canadian Red Cross, The Council for Exceptional Children and the US Technical Assistance Center on Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports.
"For the app, we videotaped twelve interviews with Mr. Hendricks, on how his mind works, true inventions, overcoming bullying, predicting the future, tips for programmers and other topics," said app producer and director Bruce Batchelor. "His voice was so rich that we then asked him to narrate the story – which he did superbly."
Internet history junkies will find a treasure trove of ‘backstory’ material in the app: information on the first ever email virus, the 1979 IBM Systems Journal article by Hendricks and Tim Hartmann chronicling the technical development of VNET into a world-wide network years before the Internet was launched, dozens of anecdotes about creating VNET and meetings with Vint Cerf and other scientists, trip reports, internal memos and documents detailing IBM’s bungled opportunity, and a 160k log of pre-Internet emails between scientists debating standards.
The original music score was composed and performed on piano by Leanne Jones. Anna Mah created the illustrations.