J. C. R. Licklider is largely credited as the man with the earliest vision of the internet as it is today. As Director of the Information Processing Techniques Office (IPTO), "Lick" implemented the funding priorities that would lead to the development of many of the inventions we use today including the internet, mouse, windows, and hypertext. In the end, Licklider created a managerial style where grad students were allowed to build a multi-billion dollar research project; the ARPAnet.

In two of Licklider's most influential papers, Man-Computer Symbiosis (1960) and The Computer as a Communications Device (1968, co-authored with Robert Taylor), he describes his vision of computing including why the Internet was built and it's future in which he predicts that by 2000 millions of people would be online, connected by a global network. Turns out he was right.

J. C. R. Licklider was born in 1915 and passed away in 1990.