CENIAI staff photo taken in 1990

CENIAI -- The Center for Automatic Interchange of Information -- was Cuba's networking link to the Soviet bloc during the pre-Internet days. The CENIAI staff understood the potential importance of networking for Cuba and were enthusiastic members of the international networking community.

This photo, showing many members of the CENIAI staff, was taken on the malecón in Havana in 1990 by Oscar Visiedo who was director of CENIAI at the time. You can see Oscar's proud comments and the names of the people by following this link to Oscar Visiedo's Facebook page. (Jesus Martinez, who was CENIAI Director six years later when Cuba connected to the Internet, is second from the left in the back row).

This was taken six years before CENIAI got their first IP connection to the Internet.

These were the Cuban Internet pioneers.