Alan Emtage (born November 27, 1964) is a Bajan-

Canadian Canadians () are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their being ''C ...

computer scientist A computer scientist is a scientist who specializes in the academic study of computer science. Computer scientists typically work on the theoretical side of computation. Although computer scientists can also focus their work and research on ...

who conceived and implemented the first version of Archie, a pre-

Web Web most often refers to: * Spider web, a silken structure created by the animal * World Wide Web or the Web, an Internet-based hypertext system Web, WEB, or the Web may also refer to: Computing * WEB, a literate programming system created by ...

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the Global network, global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a internetworking, network of networks ...

search engine A search engine is a software system that provides hyperlinks to web pages, and other relevant information on World Wide Web, the Web in response to a user's web query, query. The user enters a query in a web browser or a mobile app, and the sea ...

for locating material in public

FTP The File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is a standard communication protocol used for the transfer of computer files from a server to a client on a computer network. FTP is built on a client–server model architecture using separate control and dat ...

archives. It is widely considered the world's first Internet search engine.

Life

Emtage was born in

Barbados Barbados, officially the Republic of Barbados, is an island country in the Atlantic Ocean. It is part of the Lesser Antilles of the West Indies and the easternmost island of the Caribbean region. It lies on the boundary of the South American ...

, the son of Sir Stephen and Margot Lady Emtage. He attended high school at Harrison College from 1975 to 1983 (and in 1981 became the owner of a

Sinclair ZX81 The ZX81 is a home computer that was produced by Sinclair Research and manufactured in Dundee, Scotland, by Timex Corporation. It was launched in the United Kingdom in March 1981 as the successor to Sinclair's ZX80 and designed to be a low- ...

with 1K of memory), where he graduated at the top of his class, winning the Barbados Scholarship. In 1983 Emtage entered

McGill University McGill University (French: Université McGill) is an English-language public research university in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1821 by royal charter,Frost, Stanley Brice. ''McGill University, Vol. I. For the Advancement of Learning, ...

Montreal, Quebec Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...

, Canada, studying for an honors

Bachelor's degree A bachelor's degree (from Medieval Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to six years ...

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, information, and automation. Computer science spans Theoretical computer science, theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, and information theory) to Applied science, ...

which was followed by a

Master's degree A master's degree (from Latin ) is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional prac ...

in 1987 from which he graduated in 1991. Emtage was part of the team that brought the first Internet link to eastern Canada (and only the second link in the country) in 1986. In 1989 while a student and working as a

systems administrator An IT administrator, system administrator, sysadmin, or admin is a person who is responsible for the upkeep, configuration, and reliable operation of computer systems, especially multi-user computers, such as Server (computing), servers. The ...

for the School of Computer Science, Emtage conceived and implemented the original version of the

Archie search engine Archie is a tool for indexing FTP archives, allowing users to more easily identify specific files. It is considered the first Internet search engine. The original implementation was written in 1990 by Alan Emtage, then a postgraduate student at ...

, the world's first Internet search engine. In 1992, Emtage along with , also a McGill graduate, formed Bunyip Information Systems in Montreal—the world's first company expressly founded for and dedicated to providing Internet information services with a licensed commercial version of the Archie search engine. Emtage was a founding member of the

Internet Society The Internet Society (ISOC) is an American non-profit advocacy organization founded in 1992 with local chapters around the world. It has offices in Reston, Virginia, United States, and Geneva, Switzerland. Organization The Internet Society ...

and went on to create and chair several working groups at the

Internet Engineering Task Force The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) is a standards organization for the Internet standard, Internet and is responsible for the technical standards that make up the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP). It has no formal membership roster ...

(IETF), the standard-setting body for the Internet. Working with other pioneers such as

Tim Berners-Lee Sir Timothy John Berners-Lee (born 8 June 1955), also known as TimBL, is an English computer scientist best known as the inventor of the World Wide Web, the HTML markup language, the URL system, and HTTP. He is a professorial research fellow a ...

Marc Andreessen Marc Lowell Andreessen ( ; born July 9, 1971) is an American businessman and former software engineer. He is the co-author of Mosaic, the first widely used web browser with a graphical user interface; co-founder of Netscape; and co-founder and ...

, Mark McCahill (creator of

Gopher Pocket gophers, commonly referred to simply as gophers, are burrowing rodents of the family Geomyidae. The roughly 41 speciesSearch results for "Geomyidae" on thASM Mammal Diversity Database are all endemic to North and Central America. They ar ...

) and

Jon Postel Jonathan Bruce Postel (; August 6, 1943 – October 16, 1998) was an American computer scientist who made many significant contributions to the development of the Internet, particularly with respect to Internet Standard, standards. He is known p ...

, Emtage co-chaired the

Uniform Resource Identifier A Uniform Resource Identifier (URI), formerly Universal Resource Identifier, is a unique sequence of characters that identifies an abstract or physical resource, such as resources on a webpage, mail address, phone number, books, real-world obje ...

working group which created the standard for

Uniform Resource Locator A uniform resource locator (URL), colloquially known as an address on the World Wide Web, Web, is a reference to a web resource, resource that specifies its location on a computer network and a mechanism for retrieving it. A URL is a specific t ...

s (URLs). In 2017, Emtage was inducted as an Innovator by the

into the

Internet Hall of Fame The Internet Hall of Fame is an honorary lifetime achievement award administered by the Internet Society (ISOC) in recognition of individuals who have made significant contributions to the development and advancement of the Internet. Overview ...

in a ceremony in

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

. In 2019, Emtage was conferred the

Honorary Degree An honorary degree is an academic degree for which a university (or other degree-awarding institution) has waived all of the usual requirements. It is also known by the Latin phrases ''honoris causa'' ("for the sake of the honour") or '' ad hon ...

Doctor of Science A Doctor of Science (; most commonly abbreviated DSc or ScD) is a science doctorate awarded in a number of countries throughout the world. Africa Algeria and Morocco In Algeria, Morocco, Libya and Tunisia, all universities accredited by the s ...

from the

University of the West Indies The University of the West Indies (UWI), originally University College of the West Indies, is a public university system established to serve the higher education needs of the residents of 18 English-speaking countries and territories in t ...

, and in 2022 received an

from

. Emtage has spoken and lectured on Internet Information Systems and is chief technical officer at Mediapolis, a Web engineering company in

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

Works

* A. Emtage, P. Deutsch
''archie - An Electronic Directory Service for the Internet''
Winter Usenix Conference Proceedings 1992. Pages 93–110. * Michael F. Schwartz, Alan Emtage, Brewster Kahle, B. Clifford Neuman
''A Comparison of Internet Resource Discovery Approaches''
Computing Systems, Fall 1992, pp. 461–493, 5(4), * P. Deutsch, A. Emtage, A. Marine
''How to Use Anonymous FTP''
(RFC1635, May 1994) * Alan Emtage, "Publishing in the Internet environment", Proceedings of the Sixth Joint European Networking Conference, 1995 * Alan Emtage
"Can You Imagine A World Without Search?"
Medium, September 2015

References

;Additional sources * ''The Search: How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture'' John Battelle (Portfolio Hardcover, 2005) * ''How the Web was Born: The Story of the World Wide Web'' Robert Cailliau, James Gillies, R. Cailliau (Oxford University Press, 2000) *''The Information Revolution: The Not-for-Dummies Guide to the History, Technology, And Use of the World Wide Web'' J. R. Okin (Ironbound Press, 2005) *''Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science'' Marcel Dekker (CRC Press, 2002) *''Encyclopedia of Microcomputers'' Allen Kent, James G Williams, Kent Kent (Marcel Dekke, 2002)
Hobbes' Internet Timeline

A Brief History of Search Engines

PC Magazine, April 24, 2007
* * * *

External links

Home page for Alan Emtage

Radio Interview - starts at 36:08
(November 7, 2009) - ''Saturday Live, BBC Radio 4'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Emtage, Alan McGill University Faculty of Science alumni 1964 births Living people Barbadian emigrants to Canada Barbadian emigrants to the United States Canadian computer scientists Internet pioneers