About Brian Kantor and Donations for the Alan Turing Memorial Scholarship

The Center for Networked Systems created the Alan Turing Memorial Scholarship to affirm the importance of a diverse and inclusive community of engineers and to pay homage to Alan Turing, a titan in the field of computer science, whose contributions were tragically cut short. Starting on June 1, 2015, CNS held its first fundraising campaign with a goal to endow the scholarship at $250,000. CNS reached this goal on February 1, 2020, thanks to a generous $225,533 grant from the Amateur Radio Digital Communications (ARDC) in memory of Brian Kantor, WB6YT, a UC San Diego alumnus and long-time employee and founder of the ARDC. CNS is grateful to the ARDC and to many individuals who donated, including Qualcomm Incorporated, and Google through the American Endowment Foundation.

Obituary from The San Diego Union-Tribune: “Brian Halpenny Kantor (January 19, 1953 – November 21, 2019) was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to Martin E. Kantor and Ann Halpenny Kantor. Brian became a Californian at the age of two. After residing in Pasadena, California, the family moved to San Diego in 1959. Brian was a graduate of Clairemont High School and received a BA in Computer Graphics from UC San Diego’s Muir College in 1985. He worked for the University of California, San Diego, for 47 years, mostly in the Academic Computing and Network Operations departments, finally retiring from the Computer Science and Engineering department in 2018. He was respected worldwide in the technology community for his achievements including co-creation of NNTP (Network News Transfer Protocol), his co-founding of the AMPR Net packet radio network, for which he served as West Coast operator, and most recently for his founding of the Amateur Radio Digital Communications (ADRC) charitable foundation for which he served as chair and CEO. Brian was an enthusiastic ham from his teenage years, (call sign WB6CYT), and volunteered his considerable radio and antenna construction and repair skills on mountaintops all over San Diego County. He served as a mentor to many, including his many student employees over the years, many of whom credit their success to the opportunities Brian gave them and to his early teaching and encouragement. Brian had a wide circle of friends and was known to them as kind and reliable, always up for dinner out, and always ready to help in times of need. He threw great parties and had many hobbies, including photography and videography, film and film history, naturism, programming, and fast cars. He loved all things Japanese and adored cats…”