WWW's historical logo designed by Robert Cailliau

Robert Cailliau (born 26 January 1947) is a Belgian computer scientist who, together with Sir Tim Berners-Lee, developed the World Wide Web.

Biography

Cailliau was born in Tongeren, Belgium. In 1958 he moved with his parents to Antwerp. After secondary school he graduated from Ghent University in 1969 as civil engineer in electrical and mechanical engineering (Dutch: Burgerlijk Werktuigkundig en Elektrotechnisch ingenieur). He also has an MSc from the of University of Michigan in Computer, Information and Control Engineering, 1971.

During his military service in the Belgian Army he already wrote primitive Fortran-programmes to simulate troop movements. ^[1]

In December 1974 he started working at CERN as a Fellow in the Proton Synchrotron (PS) division, working on the control system of the accelerator. In April 1987 he left the PS division to become group leader of Office Computing Systems in the Data Handling division. In 1989, Tim Berners-Lee proposed a hypertext system for access to the many forms of documentation at and related to CERN. Berners-Lee created the system, calling it World Wide Web, between September to December of 1990. During this time, Cailliau and he co-authored a proposal for funding for the project. Cailliau later became a key proponent of the project.

In 1993, in collaboration with the Fraunhofer Gesellschaft Cailliau started the European Commission's first web-based project for information dissemination in Europe. As a result of his work with CERN's Legal Service, CERN released the web technology into the public domain on 30 April 1993.

In December 1993 Cailliau called for the first International WWW Conference which was held at CERN in May 1994. The oversubscribed conference brought together 380 web pioneers and was a milestone in the development of the web. The conference led to the forming of the International World Wide Web Conference Committee which has organized an annual conference since then. Cailliau was a member of the committee from 1994 until 2004.

In 1994 Cailliau started the "Web for Schools" project with the European Commission, introducing the web as a resource for education. After helping to transfer the web development from CERN to the W3C, he devoted his time to public communication. He went on early retirement in January 2005 and left CERN in January 2007.

Cailliau declares on his website that he is an atheist.

Awards

• 1995: ACM Software System Award (with Tim Berners-Lee)^[2]
• 1999: Plantin Prize Antwerp
• 1999: Dr. Hon. Southern Cross University
• 2000: Dr. Hon. University of Ghent
• 2001: Médaille Genève Reconnaissante (with Tim Berners-Lee)
• 2004: Commander in the Order of King Leopold (awarded by King Albert II of Belgium)
• 2006: Honorary citizenship of the city of Tongeren

Works

• How the Web Was Born: The Story of the World Wide Web, James Gillies, Robert Cailliau (Oxford Paperbacks, 2000) ISBN 0-19-286207-3

Notes

References

• Short Curriculum Vitae of Dr. Ir. Robert Cailliau
• Hypertext in the Web - a History, ACM 1999

External links

• Cailliau's website
• First International Conference on the World-Wide Web
• First International Conference on the World-Wide Web announcement
• International World Wide Web Conference Committee

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