'I very much value the opportunity to listen to students' perspectives'

One of the fathers of HTML joins UWE to help train the web's next generation of developers and torch-bearers

It is hard to imagine life without the internet, but there was a time when it was the preserve of science academics seeking to share information among themselves. There were those, however, who saw its potential and took it from academe to the world at large.

Dave Raggett was one of them. Acknowledged as one of the pioneers of the world wide web, he has become a visiting professor at the University of the West of England, in Bristol. Dr Raggett, 62, who did a first degree in physics and DPhil in astrophysics at Oxford University, was working at Hewlett Packard Research Laboratories in the early 1990s when he joined a group led by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the father of the web, at CERN in Geneva.

The group worked on the creation of HTML, one of two key standards that made the web possible. He was later instrumental in bringing together representatives of the various browser companies - Netscape, Microsoft, Spyglass, Sun Microsystems and Pathfinder - to make early decisions about standardising HTML.

Dr Raggett said: "I am delighted by this opportunity to be associated with the University of the West of England and their programmes for training the next generation of web designers. As well as being able to contribute my experience to the curricula, I very much value the opportunity to listen to students' perspectives."

Dr Raggett has been a fellow of the W3C consortium of businesses that develops standardised technology. He currently leads the W3C's work on ubiquitous web applications.

Dr Raggett has co-authored four books about the web, written tutorials on key web technology and created several pieces of widely used software.