W3C: death of Michael Dertouzos, humanist of the Net

The W3C, the World Wide Web Consortium, whose European settlement is located at the INRIA, in Sophia Antipolis, has lost one its pillars. The MIT professor, Michael Dertouzos, has died in Boston, USA, at 64 years old. The director of the LCS (Laboratory for Computer Science) of the MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), he welcomed the W3C when it was created, this Web standardisation institute which has largely contributed to reach its current universality. “Without Michael Dertouzos, there would not have been any W3C”, Tim Berners-Lee, the father of Internet, explains in the tribute on the MIT site ("MIT Professor Michael L. Dertouzos dies at 64; IT pioneer who made technology accessible").

From Greek origins, Michael Dertouzos used to say that it was a big mistake when, 300 years ago, we separate technology from humanism and that it was time to correct this mistake. All his life long, he has thus worked so that computers can fit men and not the contrary. This was his goal through the MIT Project Oxygen and a series of books such as his last release, “The Unfinished Revolution: Human-Centered Computers and What They Can Do for Us" (HarperCollins). These actions and visions have made him one of the cyber-leaders of the Net.