In 1989, Québec’s major universities and the Computer Research Institute of Montreal (CRIM) collaborated to create the first autonomous network for teaching and research purposes, the Réseau interordinateurs scientifiques québécois (RISQ).
At its inception, RISQ was a network dedicated to fostering information sharing and connections between active research organizations. The RISQ network connected – and still connects – Québec’s higher education institutions and research centers to allow them to exchange data quickly, making it the first active Internet network in Québec.
In 1998, RISQ became an organization in its own right, now called the Réseau d’informations scientifiques du Québec, keeping the acronym RISQ. RISQ thus played a key role in the birth of the Internet in Québec. It was an important player in the emergence of the first commercial Internet service providers as well as in the appropriation of Internet technologies in Québec.
