Learn Honoring As Well As Supporting Belgian Network Pioneers

It’s non every twenty-four hours that a Prime Minister visits your office. Today, Googlers inwards our Brussels component were honoured past times a see from Belgium’s Prime Minister Elio Di Rupo to celebrate as well as revive the retention of 2 unique Belgian inventors as well as pioneers.



Decades earlier the creation of the World Wide Web, Paul Otlet as well as Henri La Fontaine envisaged a newspaper archival organization of the world’s information. They built a giant international documentation see called Mundaneum, amongst the destination of preserving peace past times assembling noesis as well as making it accessible to the entire world. For us at Google, this mission sounds familiar.

The 2 Mundaneum founders met inwards 1895 as well as created the modern library universal decimal classification system, edifice from John Dewey’s early on work. When La Fontaine won the Nobel Peace Prize inwards 1913 for his move every bit an activist inwards the international peace movement, he invested his winnings into the Mundaneum project, which was already underway. La Fontaine as well as Otlet collected 3-by-5 inch index cards to build a vast newspaper database which eventually contained about xvi meg entries, roofing everything from the history of hunting dogs to finance. The Belgian authorities granted them infinite inwards a authorities edifice as well as Otlet established a fee-based question service that allowed anyone inwards the basis to submit a query via postal service or telegraph. Inquiries poured inwards from all over the world.

World War II as well as the deaths of La Fontaine inwards 1943 as well as Otlet inwards 1944 slowed the project. Although many of these archives were stored away, about of them inwards the Brussels subway, volunteers kept the dream alive. In 1998, Belgium’s French community authorities revived the Mundaneum’s memory, bringing most of the archives to a beautiful Art Deco edifice inwards the metropolis of Mons.

That brings us to today. The Prime Minister came to our component to denote a major partnership amongst the Mundaneum as well as the University of Ghent. Google volition sponsor as well as partner inwards both the upcoming exhibition at the Mundaneum headquarters inwards Mons as well as a speaker serial on Internet issues at the Mundaneum as well as the University of Ghent. Web pioneers Louis Pouzin and Robert Cailliau are already scheduled to speak.

Mundaneum volition usage Google to acquaint as well as promote its conferences as well as exhibitions. It has also constructed an online tour of its dazzling premises. At today’s outcome inwards the Google Brussels office, Prime Minister Di Rupo said he hopes that the Google-Mundaneum cooperation becomes a “wonderful forum for experimentation.” Di Rupo himself is passionate nigh the Mundaneum; every bit mayor of Mons, he was instrumental inwards preserving the archive.

If information was of import a century ago, it is fifty-fifty to a greater extent than of import inwards the 21st century. In his remarks, the Prime Minister made the connector betwixt the past times as well as the future, as well as called on Kingdom of Belgium to comprehend the digital economy. We showed him our recently-launched Belgian version of Street View. In Belgium, the Internet accounts for 2.5 per centum of GDP—and its contribution is expected to grow past times to a greater extent than than 10 per centum a twelvemonth for the adjacent 5 years. “If all our companies could accept meliorate advantages of these novel technologies, its certain that our exports would larn a boost,” Di Rupo said.

Our partnership amongst Mundaneum is component of a larger projection to revive the retention of Europe’s computing pioneers. Europe played a crucial purpose inwards the project design of computers as well as the Internet, all the same all likewise oftentimes has forgotten its innovators. Last twelvemonth marked the 60th anniversary of LEO, the world’s get-go describe of piece of job concern computer, built past times Sergey Lebedev’s pioneering MESM project. We’ve also given our back upwards to assist restore Bletchley Park, the site of the U.K.’s wartime codebreaking as well as habitation of Colossus, the world’s get-go electronic programmable computer.

Now we’re moving to the see of Europe. “This is a beautiful flush betwixt Google as well as us, which allows allows us to recognize the the retention of the Mundaneum,” says the Mundaneum’s manager Jean-Paul Deplus. For Google, it’s only every bit exciting to rediscover our ain roots.

Posted past times William Echikson, External Relations, Brussels