David Crystal is one of the world's leading language experts and the inventor of the Sense Engine^TM approach to semantic advertising.

David published the first of his 100 or so books in 1964, and became known chiefly for his research work in English language studies, in such fields as intonation and stylistics, and in the application of linguistics to religious, educational and clinical contexts, notably in the development of a range of linguistic profiling techniques for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes. He held a chair at the University of Reading for 10 years, and is now Honorary Professor of Linguistics at the University of Wales, Bangor.David was awarded the OBE in 1995 for services to the English language.

David's authored works are mainly in the field of language, including several Penguin books, but he is perhaps best known for his two encyclopedias for Cambridge University Press, The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language and The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language.It was these titles that gave rise to David developing a stable of general reference products, the Cambridge Encyclopedia, Cambridge Factfinder & latterly simlar products for Penguin Books.

It was these reference products that led to a collaboration with AND Publishers in the mid-nineties, on a product called the Global Data Model. David designed a global classification system to markup the world's information, years in advance of the Semantic Web!

Working with a team of 40 linguists and lexicographers, David embarked on this massive project. Following the demise of AND in 2001, David and colleague Ian Saunders funded the project themselves, eventually completing it in 2004. Launching the technology in 2005, it grabbed the attention of a number of world's leading web companies before being acquired by ad pepper media in 2006. The project then became known as iSense.

Since the acquisition by ad pepper, David continues to be involved with the iSense project working in a research and development capacity. More latterly, David has been in great demand as a conference speaker and commentator on the subject of semantic advertising.