Professor Henry J. Beker often stresses how much he loves life. Given that the company he founded and chairs, Baltimore Technologies, is worth around £3 billion, which means his personal stake in the business is worth more than £30 million, this is not altogether surprising.

But you suspect the real reason the former president of the Institute of Mathematics oozes enthusiasm is that he is afforded a unique opportunity. The former academic now has the chance to put his manifold ideas into practice: the ultimate empirical test of his hypotheses.

'It's just real good to be alive,' Beker says. 'There's a lot of fun to be had. It's exciting because there's a lot of opportunity around. I feel privileged to be in the IT industry at this time.'

In addition to Baltimore, which provides online security solutions to businesses - a market with huge growth potential - Beker has recently accepted the chairmanships of two other fledgling Internet companies. In both cases he has pumped in his own money. Several other investments lie ahead.

And, on top of his ever-expanding portfolio of companies, Beker, 48, is to launch the e-Learning Foundation, a a charity that aims to give every pupil in the UK access to a portable computer at school. Beker's back-of-the-envelope calculations suggest the project will cost a minimum of £8 billion.

Beker's career path has been an unusual one. One day he was happily ensconced in academia; the next, Sir Ernest Harrison,former chairman of Racal Electronics, plucked him from the ivory towers and set the mathematician on the path to becoming an entrepreneur.

Beker's interest in maths emerged at Kilburn Grammar School in London. He later won the University of London prize for best student, which convinced him to go on to do a PhD in mathematics. His first post was as a research assistant in Swansea.

'It was meant to be a two-year post, but after a year I was headhunted by Racal. They were getting more and more into military and security systems. They decided they needed a mathematician, but didn't know how to find one. So they employed a professor from Bath University to look for one.'

Beker didn't know what to think of the offer at first. 'I'd never really thought about moving into industry. I was absolutely focused on academia, churning out research papers. As far as I was concerned, this was art.'

But Racal dangled a large carrot and Beker quitted the groves of academe. Colleagues suggested he was selling out. 'To an extent I was, but it was such a great opportunity - to build a maths department in industry - that I couldn't refuse.'

There was one small problem. Beker was a mathematician working with electronic engineers. He didn't understand what his colleagues were going on about. He found the solution by studying for an engineering degree at night school.

Beker rose through the Racal ranks, ending up as managing director of security firm Chubb, but by 1988 he wanted to do something himself. 'I believed there was going to be a huge opportunity created by people doing business electronically. They would need security. This was in pre-Internet days, but the signs were there.'

Beker called his company Zergo and initially the omens looked good. Several big banks signed up for the company's services and an injection of cash from a venture capital firm allowed Zergo to buy up a smaller rival.

And then came the recession. 'It was all about survival. We were working incredibly hard to stay alive.'

Then the Internet emerged as the good times returned and Zergo was faced with a massive dilemma. Should it tear up its business plan and take a bet on becoming an Internet player?

A subsequent acquisition made Zergo the biggest security player in Europe and Asia, but the US market still had to be cracked. A small Irish company called Baltimore had started to carve out a name for itself in the US. The acquisition was completed at the start of last year, only a few months after Zergo floated on the London Stock Exchange and the new company kept the Baltimore name. A Nasdaq listing followed last November.

Earlier this year, Baltimore Technologies entered the FTSE 100, startling many observers, who had never heard of it and saw the rise of new-economy companies, many with highly inflated values, is a sign of market mania. But Beker argues that Baltimore is now one of the best companies of its type in the world, a claim the City enthusiastically endorsed until March of this year. Between January 1999 and January 2000, Baltimore's share price soared from just under 500p to more than 13,200p, a move that valued the company at close to £6 billion.

The recent slump in the value of technology stocks has cut Baltimore's value in half, although the share price has started to rise again. Beker is now looking to turn two other companies into businesses the size of Baltimore. ProtX is a company that does away with the need for credit card details in online transactions. OverNet Data designs wireless e-commerce services. Too many pies perhaps?

'The good and bad of me, if you like, is that I do have a tremendous amount of energy. I enjoy being involved with things.'

Indeed his most recent project, the details of which have yet to be fully revealed and are still being fleshed out, represents a colossal undertaking: the e-Learning Foundation, which Beker is to spearhead.

'In its broadest sense its aim is to promote and support technology and education. Within the next five years, I would like to see every pupil in the UK with a portable computer of their own, such that they can take from lesson to lesson so that IT becomes just like maths and English, a fundamental enabler. I believe that could put the UK at the forefront of the world.'

Microsoft has given the project some seed capital, but winning the Government around will prove crucial to the project's success. The two sides are in discussions.

'The discussions have been positive, but the Government does have some very justifiable reservations. It needs to ensure there will be equity of access, and it needs to ensure that any funds they put in will be used in the right way.'

Beker says the project will cost something like £8 billion, a sum he acknowledges 'is non-trivial, to put it mildly'. His financing solution is either one of the most enlightened pieces of thinking to have emerged from the dot.com sector, or one of the most naïve, depending on how cynical your view of human nature is.

'I want to see all the new IT companies that are being founded donating a small part of their equity to the e-Learning Foundation. I would claim it's in their interest to do so, because it would make their companies more successful in the future. The equity may not be a lot today, but somewhere there'll be the next generation of Microsofts and Baltimores.'

The established players would be asked to pay into a fund which would work in conjunction with local subsidiaries. Beker says that several companies have already signed up to offer the Foundation equity stakes.

It is a herculean undertaking, but Beker is convinced he can help make it happen.

'No project of this size is going to be without issues and problems. But if you spend all your time thinking of those you're not going to do anything.'

Not a concept widely endorsed in academia.