For a number of years, the keynote lecture of the SETI I sessions at the annual IAA Symposium on the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence has honored Prof. Rudolph Pesek, the Czech scientist credited with coining the acronym CETI.

In the literature on the problem of Extraterrestrial Civilizations, besides the term SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence), the term CETI (Communication with Extraterrestrial Intelligence has also long been used. Historically, the term CETI appeared earlier. It was proposed by Professor Rudolph Pesek, Chairman of the Astronautics Commission of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences.

Pesek was the first Chairman of the CETI Committee of the International Academy of Astronautics (IAA). The term CETI persisted until about the mid-1970s, when it was gradually replaced by the current acronym, SETI. The reason for this substitution was probably a belief that, before talking about establishing communications with extraterrestrial civilizations, these must first be detected. Consequently, the search must precede the communication. Eventually, the CETI Committee of the IAA was renamed the IAA SETI Committee. It now exists as the SETI Permanent Study Group of the International Academy of Astronautics.

Year	Lecturer	Topic
2008	Wm. Jack Welch	The Allen Telescope Array: the first widefield, panoramic, snapshot radio camera for radio astronomy and SETI
2007	Govind Swarup	GMRT, SKA and SETI
2006	Claudio Maccone	SETI, Extrasolar Planets Searches, and Interstellar Flight: When Are They Going To Merge?
2003	Claudio Maccone	Innovative SETI by the KLT
2002	Frank Drake	Promising New Approaches in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence
2000	Wm. Jack Welch	Building SETI's First Dedicated Observatory

• See also: Annual Billingham Cutting-Edge Lecture