over the acm ticker: charles thucker gets the acm turing award 2009. nicenicenice

for pioneering design and realization of the Alto, the first modern personal computer, and the prototype for networked personal computers. Alto incorporated bitmap (TV-like) displays which enable modern graphical user interfaces (GUIs), including What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) editors.

but also for

his contributions to the Ethernet local area network, the "interconnection fabric" that allows multiple digital devices such as workstations, printers, scanners, file servers, and modems to communicate with each other. | acm

whatever "private public partnership" might mean, nice may provide a clue:

12th of march: streaming, agenda

may it be of interest: NetAffair - challenging the next generations of networking.

but watching the scene, i am not that optimistic that this story will end differently for europe this time.