XKL, LLC

Cisco Systems co-founders Leonard Bosack and Sandy Lerner are the winners of the IEEE Computer Society’s 2009 Computer Entrepreneur Award

Cisco Systems co-founders Leonard Bosack and Sandy Lerner are the winners of the IEEE Computer Society’s 2009 Computer Entrepreneur Award, joining the ranks of a who’s who of technology leaders honored with the award over the past quarter-century.

Bosack and Lerner co-founded Cisco Systems in 1984, pioneering the widespread commercialization of wide area network (WAN) technology to connect geographically disparate computers over a multiprotocol router system. The company, which landed more than $200,000 in contracts during its first year, went public in 1990, and is now a networking equipment powerhouse with a market cap of more than $140 billion.

Before Bosack and Lerner left the company in 1990, it produced revolutionary technology such as the first true multi-protocol, multi-media Layer 3 device, and IGRP which enabled path redundancy. This technical foundation that the pair established still persists at Cisco and throughout the Internet today.

Bosack, now CEO of telecommunications engineering company XKL, is currently working on creating fiber optic systems that can achieve unprecedented data transmission latency speeds. Lerner now runs Ayrshire Farm, a certified organic and humane Virginia farm operation, restaurant, and butcher shop, and is involved in various philanthropic endeavors.
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