'''Intergalactic Computer Network''' or '''Galactic Network'''<ref>{{cite web|author=Leiner, Barry M.|title="Origins of the Internet" in A Brief History of the Internet version 3.32|publisher=The Internet Society|date=2003-12-10| url=http://www.isoc.org/internet/history/brief.shtml#Origins|access-date=2007-11-03|display-authors=etal}}</ref> ('''IGCN''') was a computer networking concept similar to today's [[Internet]].
[[J.C.R. Licklider]], the first director of the [[Information Processing Techniques Office]] (IPTO) at [[The Pentagon]]'s [[DARPA|ARPA]], used the term in the early 1960s to refer to a networking system he "imagined as an electronic commons open to all, ‘the'the main and essential medium of informational interaction for governments, institutions, corporations, and individuals.'"<ref name="Garreau2006">{{cite book|last=Garreau|first=Joel|title=Radical Evolution: The Promise and Peril of Enhancing Our Minds, Our Bodies--and what it Means to be Human|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YCuOKOD5nY4C&pg=PA22|year=2006|publisher=Broadway|isbn=978-0-7679-1503-8|page=22}}</ref><ref name=britannica>{{cite encyclopedia | title=Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) (United States Government) | encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica | publisher=Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. | url=http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/745612/Defense-Advanced-Research-Projects-Agency-DARPA#ref829305 | access-date=11 January 2014 }}</ref> An office memorandum he sent to his colleagues in 1963 was addressed to "Members and Affiliates of the Intergalactic Computer Network".<ref>{{cite web|author=Licklider, J. C. R.|title=Topics for Discussion at the Forthcoming Meeting, Memorandum For: Members and Affiliates of the Intergalactic Computer Network|date=23 April 1963|___location=Washington, D.C.|publisher=Advanced Research Projects Agency, via KurzweilAI.net |url=http://www.kurzweilai.net/memorandum-for-members-and-affiliates-of-the-intergalactic-computer-network|access-date=2013-01-26}}</ref> As head of IPTO from 1962 to 1964, "Licklider initiated three of the most important developments in information technology: the creation of [[computer science]] departments at several major universities, [[time-sharing]], and [[Computer network|networking]]."<ref name=britannica/>
Licklider first learned about time-sharing from [[Christopher Strachey]] at the inaugural [[International Federation for Information Processing#History|UNESCO Information Processing Conference]] in Paris in 1959.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/howwebwasbornsto00gill|url-access=registration|title=How the Web was Born: The Story of the World Wide Web|last1=Gillies|first1=James M.|last2=Gillies|first2=James|last3=Gillies|first3=James and Cailliau Robert|last4=Cailliau|first4=R.|date=2000|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-286207-5|pages=[https://archive.org/details/howwebwasbornsto00gill/page/13 13]|language=en}}</ref>
