Nabil Bukhalid (1957 – 3 January 2023) was a Lebanese computer scientist and founder of the Lebanese Academic and Research Network. He is a Internet Hall of Fame Inductee and he was one of the key figures responsible for introducing the Internet to

Lebanon Lebanon, officially the Republic of Lebanon, is a country in the Levant region of West Asia. Situated at the crossroads of the Mediterranean Basin and the Arabian Peninsula, it is bordered by Syria to the north and east, Israel to the south ...

and establishing the Lebanese Domain Registry. He is commonly referred to as the "Father of the Internet" in

Early life

Nabil Bukhalid was born in 1957 in the town of

Bhamdoun Bhamdoun (), is a town in Lebanon from Beirut on the main road that leads to Damascus and in the suburbs of the main tourist city of Aley, lying at an altitude of above the Lamartine valley. Geography Two separate villages compose the town, ' ...

, Lebanon. Bukhalid graduated from the

American University of Beirut The American University of Beirut (AUB; ) is a private, non-sectarian, and independent university chartered in New York with its main campus in Beirut, Lebanon. AUB is governed by a private, autonomous board of trustees and offers programs le ...

with a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering in 1981 and an Executive Master's in Business Administration in 2005. After the end of the

Lebanese Civil War The Lebanese Civil War ( ) was a multifaceted armed conflict that took place from 1975 to 1990. It resulted in an estimated 150,000 fatalities and led to the exodus of almost one million people from Lebanon. The religious diversity of the ...

he emigrated to

Montreal, Canada Montreal is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest in Canada, and the ninth-largest in North America. It was founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", and is now named after Mount Royal, the triple-pe ...

with his wife and daughters.

Career

Bukhalid's experience with computers started during the Lebanese Civil War, where as a biomedical engineer he used to hide in the hospital he used to work at to avoid the destruction of the civil war. This is where he began to tinker with computers and

local area network A local area network (LAN) is a computer network that interconnects computers within a limited area such as a residence, campus, or building, and has its network equipment and interconnects locally managed. LANs facilitate the distribution of da ...

s. This led him to attempt to connect the AUB to the internet to connect the university to the academic scene in the United States. Bukhalid headed the computing and networking services department at AUB from 2000 to 2011 as director and then as Chief Enterprise Architect of IT at AUB. He founded the Lebanese Domain Registry and served as its administrator since 1993. The original purpose for the .lb DNS was for the AUB's website, and it was created in August 1993. The .lb top level domain was assigned to Bukhalid by

Jon Postel Jonathan Bruce Postel (; August 6, 1943 – October 16, 1998) was an American computer scientist who made many significant contributions to the development of the Internet, particularly with respect to Internet Standard, standards. He is known p ...

, the former administrator of the

Internet Assigned Numbers Authority The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) is a standards organization that oversees global IP address allocation, Autonomous system (Internet), autonomous system number allocation, DNS root zone, root zone management in the Domain Name Syste ...

(IANA). Since its founding, the .lb domain was given to site owners for free, however to avoid conflicts, site owners were asked obtain a trademark certificate from the Ministry of Economy and Trade. This effectively made the entire DNS system run (but not owned) by Bukhalid and his team at AUB, despite their continuous attempts to get a Lebanese governmental agency to run the administration of the .lb domain. In 2011 he met with the former

president of Lebanon The president of the Lebanese Republic () is the head of state of Lebanon. The president is elected by the parliament for a term of six years, which cannot be renewed immediately because they can only be renewed non-consecutively. By convention, ...

Michel Suleiman Michel Suleiman ( ; born 21 November 1948) is a Lebanese politician who served as the 12th president of Lebanon from 2008 to 2014. Before becoming president, he served as commander of the Lebanese Armed Forces from 1998 to 2008. After Lebanese A ...

to discuss how the internet system and the .lb domain would be administered in Lebanon. He most recently worked as a consultant for organizations specializing in Internet infrastructure. In 2017 he was inducted into the

Internet Hall of Fame The Internet Hall of Fame is an honorary lifetime achievement award administered by the Internet Society (ISOC) in recognition of individuals who have made significant contributions to the development and advancement of the Internet. Overview ...

for his efforts to bring the internet to Lebanon. He died on January 3, 2023, from a heart attack while vacationing in London.

References

External links

Nabil Bukhalid
in the

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bukhalid, Nabil 1957 births 2023 deaths People from Aley District Internet pioneers Lebanese computer scientists American University of Beirut alumni Telecommunications in Lebanon Internet in Asia