Karlin lines up a list of net visonaries and Gerry McGovern of “Nua fame” is put in the same mix as Tim Berners-Lee, Vint Cerf, Tim O’Reilly and Nicholas Negroponte. One invented the web, another designed the protocols for connecting computers , one is running the One Laptop per child initiative and set up the MIT Media Lab and then we have Gerry, now modeling himself as a Jakob Nielsen-like character.
Ireland’s best known thinker on matters digital, Gerry McGovern, set up one of Ireland’s first web development companies, NUA, back in 1994
After that point, and with the setting up of his own consulting company, he has focused more on web content, in particular how organisations can best use the web. Though less of a presence in Ireland, his early writing and columns – before the Celtic Tiger took off – were some of the first to get people thinking here about the arrival of these new communications technologies and the role they might play.
Is Gerry McGovern the greatest in the history of the Irish Internet? If not, who is? Mary O’Rourke?
Meanwhile, look at the rest of the articles in that series on the Irish Times website. Lots of blogger have written pieces and lots more get mentioned. It is also in the Times as a supplement today.