One of the greatest privileges of co-curating TED isn’t just getting to work with incredible speakers, but also talking with those in the audience. Danny Hillis gave a sobering presentation, “The Internet could crash. We need a Plan B,” at TED2013, detailing his concern at the exponential growth of the Internet, and the need for a back-up plan should all else fail.

Who better to respond to this idea than the system’s so-called “Father,” Vint Cerf, who I knew was in the audience? Vint (who just this morning accepted the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering for his ground-breaking work on the Internet) agreed to answer a few questions about Danny’s talk from the stage. In the process, he gave the TED audience his perspective on the continued evolution of the system he helped design, and provided us with both a fascinating history lesson and his own manifesto for what to do now. Here’s an edited look at what he told us.

Here, the speakers who appeared in this session. Click on their name to read a recap:

Ben Affleck, straight off his Argo Oscar victory, introduced the Orchestre Symphonique Kimbanguiste.

Diana Reiss studies cognition in animals and the evolution of intelligence. She and her colleagues demonstrated that bottlenose dolphins (and Asian elephants) can recognize themselves in the mirror.

Musician Peter Gabriel is the co-founder of WITNESS, which distributes digital cameras to empower people to document human-rights abuses. A founder of the band Genesis, Gabriel is now a solo artist and record mogul, championing world music and innovation.

As Director of MIT’s Center for Bits and Atoms, Neil Gershenfeld explores the boundaries between the digital and physical worlds.

Computer scientist Vint Cerf helped lay the foundations for the internet as we know it.

Beijing-based artist Liu Bolin silently comments on modern sociopolitical conditions by dissolving into his art.

Lakshmi Pratury is the host of The INK Conference and was the co-host of TEDIndia in 2009. She talks about her new website, Billionaires of Moments.

Eleanor Longden overcame her misdiagnosis of schizophrenia to earn a master’s in psychology and demonstrate that the voices in her head were “a sane reaction to insane circumstances.”

Born in North Korea, Hyeonseo Lee left for China in 1997. Now living in South Korea, she has become an activist for fellow refugees.

Shane Koyczan makes spoken-word poetry and music. His poem “To This Day” is a powerful story of bullying and survival, illustrated by animators from around the world.