Akamai

Related Internships: 

Akamai Internship Program

Akamai was created to be a solution. In 1995, Tim Berners-Lee, World Wide Web inventor, foresaw that the internet would face major congestion as it gained users across the globe. At MIT, Professor Tom Leighton and freshly graduated Danny Lewin found a solution through applied mathematics and algorithms. These algorithms were able to intelligently redirect content over a large network. By 1997, Leighton and Lewin saw the commercial value in their new technology. They entered the annual MIT Entrepreneurship Competition. By the end of the nine-month competition, the business plan grew and earned a place among the top six finalists out of 100 entries. In 1998, Akamai finally incorporated, bringing on a number of MIT students and recent graduates to start the groundbreaking business. Paul Sagan joined the team in 1999; this former president of Time Inc. New Media and founder of Road Runner cable served on the executive board in various roles for over a decade.

Akamai’s first live traffic was delivered through a small pixel in the Disney site in February of 1999. After that, Akamai garnered massive success and attention. Yahoo! was one of its first charter customers. Today, Akamai offers numerous services past their signature web performance services, including security solutions, media delivery, network operator solutions, and 24/7 strategic support and solutions for companies’ urgent tech issues. It delivers daily web traffic reaching 100 terabits per second and has exclusive rights to over 375 U.S. patents. Akamai has over 4,000 locations and 1,400 networks. It operates out of 135 countries and has a team of 1,900 experts who are constantly working to provide the web services that have helped the internet run more efficiently since its very beginning.