Robert Cailliau (last name pronunciation: [kajo], born January 26, 1947) is a Belgian computer scientist. In 1987, he created the first hypertext system for CERN before the World Wide Web existed. He worked with Tim Berners-Lee on the development of the World Wide Web and shared the ACM Software System Award for this work. He designed the original logo of the World Wide Web, organized the first International World Wide Web Conference at CERN in 1994, and helped move Web development from CERN to the global Web consortium in 1995. He is listed as a co-author of How the Web Was Born by James Gillies, the first book to describe the origins of the World Wide Web.
Biography
Cailliau was born in Tongeren, Belgium. In 1958, he moved with his parents to Antwerp. After finishing secondary school, he earned a degree in civil, mechanical, and electrical engineering from Ghent University in 1969. He also received an MSc in computer, information, and control engineering from the University of Michigan in 1972.
During his time in the Belgian Army, he used Fortran programs to simulate troop movements.
In December 1974, Cailliau began working at CERN as a Fellow in the Proton Synchrotron (PS) division. He helped improve the control system of the accelerator. In April 1987, he moved to the Data Handling division, where he became a group leader for Office Computing Systems. In 1989, Tim Berners-Lee proposed a hypertext system to help people access information at CERN. Berners-Lee developed the system, called the World Wide Web, between September and December 1990. During this time, Cailliau and Berners-Lee helped write a proposal to get funding for the project. Cailliau later supported CERN’s web work, leading student projects to create web browsers for different operating systems, including various UNIX versions and Classic Mac OS. With Nicola Pellow, he helped develop the first web browser for Classic Mac OS, named MacWWW.
In 1993, Cailliau worked with the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft to start the European Commission’s first web-based project for sharing information in Europe, called WISE.
Because of his work with CERN’s Legal Service, CERN’s director of Future Research, Walter Hoogland, signed an official document on April 30, 1993, that made web technology freely available to the public.
In December 1993, Cailliau organized the first International WWW Conference, which took place at CERN in May 1994. The conference, which had more attendees than expected, brought together 380 web pioneers and marked a major step in the web’s development. It led to the creation of the International World Wide Web Conferences Steering Committee, which has held an annual conference every year since. Cailliau was a founding member of the committee from 1994 until 2002.
In 1995, Cailliau started the "Web for Schools" project with the European Commission, introducing the web as an educational tool. After helping move web development from CERN to the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), he focused on public communication. He retired from CERN in January 2007.
Cailliau was an active member of Newropeans, a European political group. He and Luca Cominassi wrote a proposal about the European information society.
He gave many speeches about the history and future of the World Wide Web at international conferences. Today, he is an External Collaborator at CERN IdeaSquare.
Awards
- 1995: ACM Software System Award (with Tim Berners-Lee)
- 1999: Christophe 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
- 2008: Gold Medal of the Flemish Academy of Sciences and the Arts
- 2009: Dr. Hon. University of Liège (with Tim Berners-Lee)
- 2010: Ehrenpreis Best of Swiss Web
- 2012: Internet Hall of Fame by the Internet Society
- 2021: Dr. Hon. from the University of Michigan for his co-creation (as cited by the ACM in its 1995 award to Cailliau) of the World-Wide-Web
- 2023: Honorary Member of the Alumni Society of Engineers of Ghent University