The name of Michael Dertouzos may not be up there with the bigger names in the computing world, but he played a significant part with personal computers and with the development of the Internet, as well as serving director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT) Laboratory for Computer Science. Recently Google created a Google doodle for what would have been Dertouzos’s 82nd birthday.
Michael Leonidas Dertouzos was born on November 5, 1936 and he passed away on August 27, 2001. He predicted the expansion of computer use very early and he innovated in a variety of areas, including RSA encryption, the spreadsheet, the NuBus, the X Window System and the Internet. Whether any one person can claim sole credit for the Internet and web is debatable, but Dertouzos played a major role is setting the vision.
With his work with the Internet, Dertouzos was instrumental in defining the World Wide Web Consortium, which is the main international standards organization for the World Wide Web. The organization was founded at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Laboratory for Computer Science (MIT/LCS) in 1994. Here it was Michael Dertouzos hired Tim Berners-Lee to run the World Wide Web Consortium.
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Dertouzos’ vision for the World Wide Web was an information marketplace, as set out in his book “What Will Be: How the New World of Information Will Change Our Lives.” In this text he wrote: “If we strip the hype away. A simple, crisp and inevitable picture emerges — of an Information Marketplace where people and their computers will buy, sell and freely exchange information and information work.
He also called for the use of technology for humanity’s betterment and progress. Dertouzos also believed everyone should have the right to access the Internet.
