Julio Cervera Baviera (26 January 1854 – 24 June 1927) was a Spanish engineer, educator, explorer, and colonial military commander.

He traveled to Morocco in 1877 and published a book called Geografía militar de Marruecos in 1884, and the Army commissioned him in 1884 to explore this area once more.

[citation needed] However, on 19 December 1890 he published a criticism of the Spanish colonial government in Morocco in El Imparcial, and he was arrested after being tried, and incarcerated in the Santa Bárbara at Alicante in 1891.

"[6] A group of angry young sanjuaneros agreed to challenge Cervera to a duel if the commander did not retract his pamphlet.

[7] The young men drew lots for this honor; it fell to José Janer y Soler (his "seconds" [padrinos in Spanish] were Cayetano Coll y Toste y Leonidas Villalón).

He began collaborating with Guglielmo Marconi on resolving the engineering problems of a long range wireless communication, obtaining some patents by the end of 1899.

Cervera brought to the Spanish Wireless Telegraph and Telephone Corporation the patents he had obtained in Spain, Belgium, Germany and England.

Cervera thus achieved some success in this field, but his radiotelegraphic activities ceased suddenly, the reasons for which are unclear to this day.

After 8 months he became frustrated with his inability to reform the curriculum, and traveled to Europe and the United States from May 1903, where he became interested in instruction via correspondence.

He abandoned his military career, and set up the Internacional Institución Electrotécnica, in Valencia in 1903, one of the first distance education programs in the world.

The institution later renamed itself the Institución de Enseñaza Técnica, and offered two new degrees: agricultural engineering and therapeutic teacher.

In 1908, he obtained a seat in the partial elections as candidate of the Partido Republicano Radical for Valencia, but did not win again in 1914, when he represented Xàtiva.