Robert Cailliau

His work on the World Wide Web
Robert Cailliau is a Belgian computer scientist who collaborated with Tim Berners-Lee on the World Wide Web project at CERN. There were only a handful web servers in the world when they started the project between 1989 and 1991 (Cailliau remembers there being less than 50 available).

Berners-Lee and Cailliau wanted a way to spread out the use of the web and Berners-Lee suggested the use of hypertext. They were exited to make something useful.

Cailliau was more inclined to start a company than to become rich. Becoming rich off an invention was a trend at the time. Although it would be helpful to be rich, it was not his main goal in the business. There were some thoughts of licensed software and restrictions when creating the World Wide Web. There were many discussions about licensing and making royalties to companies for installations. Eventually, Berners-Lee and Cailliau followed the “spirit” of the CERN Convention and decided to make the W3 software freely available. CERN released the web technology into the public domain around 1993.

Callilau started the “Web for Schools” project, introducing the web as a resource for education around 1995.

He retired from CERN in 2007, but Cailliau is still a public speaker on the past, present, and future of the World Wide Web.

Personal Information

 * Date of Birth: January 26, 1947
 * Place of Birth: Tongeren, Belgium
 * Military Service: Belgian Army
 * Education: Ghent University, University of Michigan