Jan Gruntorád Receives the 2026 Mensa Honorary Award

Ing. Jan Gruntorád, CSc., founder and long-standing Director of the CESNET Association, received the 2026 Mensa Honorary Award on 12 September at the Mensa Academy in Prague. Mensa Czech Republic announced his selection as this year’s laureate in June. The award is granted on the basis of a vote by Mensa members to an individual whose abilities and work make a significant contribution to society and help promote the good reputation of the Czech Republic internationally.

Jan Gruntorád is one of the pioneers of the Czech internet. In the early 1990s, he played a key role in the team that connected what was then Czechoslovakia to the internet. He later helped establish the CESNET Association, which he led for 25 years. In 2021, he became the first Czech to be inducted into the global Internet Hall of Fame, and three years later he received the Medal of Merit from the President of the Czech Republic for his contribution to the field of technology.

Award Ceremony at the Mensa Academy

This year’s Mensa Academy took place at Novotného lávka in Prague, where Jan Gruntorád also delivered a lecture entitled From the Beginnings of the Internet in Czechoslovakia to the Latest Network Services. In his talk, he looked back at the development of computer networks before the arrival of the internet in Czechoslovakia and described the subsequent development of academic networks supporting science, research and education. He also introduced the e-INFRA CZ infrastructure and its services.

We congratulate Jan Gruntorád and thank him for 25 years of leadership at CESNET, as well as for his major contribution to the development of the internet and academic networks in the Czech Republic.