The Kermit Project, a program to create a transparent and flexible file transfer protocol, is begun at Columbia University.

WHAT IS KERMIT?
Kermit is a file transfer protocol first developed at Columbia University 
in New York City in 1981 for the specific purpose of transferring text 
and binary files without errors between diverse types of computers over 
potentially hostile communication links, and it is a suite of 
communications software programs from the Kermit Project at Columbia 
University. The Kermit protocol and software are named after Kermit the 
Frog, star of the television series, The Muppet Show; the name Kermit 
is used by permission of Henson Associates, Inc. 

Over the years, the Kermit Project has grown into a worldwide cooperative 
nonprofit software development effort, headquartered at and coordinated 
from Columbia University. The Kermit Project is dedicated to production 
of cross-platform, long-lasting, standards-conformant, interoperable 
communications software, and is actively engaged in the standards process. 

Since its inception in 1981, the Kermit protocol has developed into a 
sophisticated and powerful tool for file transfer and management, 
incorporating, among other things: 

File group transmission 
File attribute transmission (size, date, permissions, etc) 
File name, record-format, and character-set conversion 
File collision options, including an "update" feature 
File transfer recovery 
Auto upload and download 
Client/Server operations 
Automatic per-file text/binary mode switching 
Recursive directory-tree transfer, even between unlike platforms 
Uniform services on serial and network connections 
An Internet Kermit Service Daemon 

(From the Kermit FAQ at Columbia)