Nabil Bukhalid 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 ( , ar, لُبْنَان, translit=lubnān, ), officially the Republic of Lebanon () or the Lebanese Republic, is a country in Western Asia. It is located between Syria to the north and east and Israel to the south, while Cyprus li ...

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

Early life

Nabil Bukhalid was born in 1957 in the town of

Bhamdoun Bhamdoun ( ar, بحمدون), 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. Two separate villages compose the to ...

, Lebanon. Bukhalid graduated from the

American University of Beirut The American University of Beirut (AUB) ( ar, الجامعة الأميركية في بيروت) is a private, non-sectarian, and independent university chartered in New York with its campus in Beirut, Lebanon. AUB is governed by a private, aut ...

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

Lebanese Civil War The Lebanese Civil War ( ar, الحرب الأهلية اللبنانية, translit=Al-Ḥarb al-Ahliyyah al-Libnāniyyah) was a multifaceted armed conflict that took place from 1975 to 1990. It resulted in an estimated 120,000 fatalities a ...

he emigrated to

Montreal, Canada Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is 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, school, laboratory, university campus or office building. By contrast, a wide area network (WAN) not only covers a larger ...

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 as the Chief Enterprise Architect from 2000 until 2011. He founded the Lebanese Domain Registry and served as its administrator since 1993. The original purpose for the

.lb .lb is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Lebanon. The official registration rules say that it is necessary to have a Lebanese trademark A trademark (also written trade mark or trade-mark) is a type of intellectual p ...

DNS was for the AUB's website, and it was created in August 1993. Bukhalid claimed that the top level domain was assigned to him by Jon Postel, 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 number allocation, root zone management in the Domain Name System (DNS), media types, and other Interne ...

(IANA). In 1997 the .lb domain which used to be given to site owners for free, now had the condition that they must obtain a trademark certificate from the Ministry of Economy and Trade at the request of Bukhalid's team. 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 ( ar, رئيس الجمهورية اللبنانية, rayiys aljumhuriat allubnania; french: Président de la République Libanaise) is the head of state of Lebanon. The president is elected by the parliame ...

Michel Suleiman Michel Suleiman ( ar, ميشال سليمان ; born 21 November 1948) is a Lebanese Maronite Christian politician who served as President of Lebanon from 2008 to 2014. Before becoming president, he served as commander of the Lebanese Armed Forc ...

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.

for his efforts to bring the internet to Lebanon. He died on January 4, 2023 from a heart attack while vacationing in London.

References

External links

Nabil Bukhalid
in the

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bukhalid, Nabil 1957 births 2023 deaths Computer scientists People from Aley District American University of Beirut alumni