Dennis Jennings
Sunday April 19 2009
AN unexpectedly happy accident of birth helped Dennis Jennings land the job that made him a founding architect of the internet. In 1985, he was earmarked for the role of director of networking at the National Science Foundation (NSF) in Washington DC. With a $20m spend, the brief was to design NSFnet -- a networked science and engineering resource. The snag was, the US Federal Government could not hire citizens of a "non-allied nation".
However, Rathfarnham boy Jennings just happened to have been born in Manchester and was able to claim his British passport and take the job. Just over a year later, NSFnet, the precursor to the worldwide web, went live.
Jennings obtained a physics PhD at UCD in 1972, but a passion for computing swiftly overshadowed gamma ray astronomy. He worked for a software company for five years, then became director of UCD's computing services department. Between 1977 and 1999 (bar his 15-month stint with the NSF) he took the college's IT infrastructure beyond its one computer and single remote terminal to the networking stage of HEA.net, and then into the internet era.
In 2002, he co-founded 4th Level Ventures, a VC investing in campus start-ups like Baltimore, Euristix and Ntera. He is also an angel investor for early stage technology companies and despite the recession, has invested in "some very exciting companies" in the past year. He divides his time 50-50 between business and pro bono work and chairs or is a board member of several small technology companies and prestigious internet organisations.
The 64-year-old's partner is Valerie Beatty and he has three adult children, Deirdre, Jennifer and Caroline. An opera and classical music enthusiast, he chairs UCD's Choral Scholars Steering Committee. He is now "trying to learn to play the piano".
- Roisin Burke
