Sir Tim Berners
by Connor Hughes
what did he do?
Sir Timothy John "Tim" Berners-Lee, OM, KBE, FRS, FREng, FRSA (born 8 June 1955), also known as "TimBL", is a British computer scientist and the inventor of the World Wide Web. He made a proposal for an information management system in March 1989, and on 25 December 1990, with the help of Robert Cailliau and a young student at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), he implemented the first successful communication between a Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) client and server via the Internet.
Berners-Lee is the director of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), which oversees the Web's continued development. He is also the founder of the World Wide Web Foundation, and is a senior researcher and holder of the Founders Chair at the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL). He is a director of the Web Science Research Initiative (WSRI),and a member of the advisory board of the MIT Center for Collective Intelligence.
In 2004, Berners-Lee was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for his pioneering work. In April 2009, he was elected a foreign associate of the United States National Academy of Sciences He was honoured as the "Inventor of the World Wide Web" during the 2012 Summer Olympics opening ceremony, in which he appeared in person, working at a NeXT Computer at the London Olympic Stadium. He tweeted "This is for everyone", which was instantly spelled out in LCD lights attached to the chairs of the 80,000 people in the audience.
early life
current work
In June 2009 then British Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced Berners-Lee would work with the UK Government to help make data more open and accessible on the Web, building on the work of the Power of Information Task Force.[33] Berners-Lee and Professor Nigel Shadbolt are the two key figures behind data.gov.uk, a UK Government project to open up almost all data acquired for official purposes for free re-use. Commenting on the opening up of Ordnance Survey data in April 2010 Berners-Lee said that: "The changes signal a wider cultural change in Government based on an assumption that information should be in the public domain unless there is a good reason not to—not the other way around." He went on to say "Greater openness, accountability and transparency in Government will give people greater choice and make it easier for individuals to get more directly involved in issues that matter to them."[34]
In November 2009, Berners-Lee launched the World Wide Web Foundation in order to "Advance the Web to empower humanity by launching transformative programs that build local capacity to leverage the Web as a medium for positive change."[35]
Berners-Lee is one of the pioneer voices in favour of Net Neutrality,[36] and has expressed the view that ISPs should supply "connectivity with no strings attached," and should neither control nor monitor customers' browsing activities without their expressed consent.[37][38] He advocates the idea that net neutrality is a kind of human network right: "Threats to the Internet, such as companies or governments that interfere with or snoop on Internet traffic, compromise basic human network rights."[39]
Berners-Lee is a co-director of the Open Data Institute.[40]
Recognition
This NeXT Computer was used by Berners-Lee at CERN and became the world's first web server- In 1994 he became one of only six members of the World Wide Web Hall of Fame.[41]
- In 1995 he won the Kilby Foundation's "Young Innovator of the Year" Award.[1]
- In 1995 he received also the Software System Award from the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM).[42]
- In the 1997 Queen's Birthday Honours he was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) "for services to global computer networking".[43]
- In 1998 he was awarded with an honorary doctorate from the University of Essex.[44]
- In 1999, Time Magazine named Berners-Lee one of the 100 Most Important People of the 20th century.[4]
- In March 2000 he was awarded an honorary degree from The Open University as Doctor of the University.[45]
- In 2001, he was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.[46]
- In 2002, he was named in the BBC's list of the 100 Greatest Britons following a UK-wide vote.[47]
- In 2003 he was awarded The Royal Photographic Society's Progress Medal and Honorary Fellowship (HonFRPS) in recognition of any invention, research, publication or other contribution which has resulted in an important advance in the scientific or technological development of photography or imaging in the widest sense.[48]
- In 2003, he received the Computer History Museum's Fellow Award, for his seminal contributions to the development of the World Wide Web.[49]
- On 15 April 2004, he was named as the first recipient of Finland's Millennium Technology Prize, for inventing the World Wide Web. The cash prize, worth one million euros (about £892,000, or US$1.3 million, as of Sept 2011), was awarded on 15 June, in Helsinki, Finland, by the President of the Republic of Finland, Tarja Halonen.[50]
- He received a knighthood in 2004 when he was promoted to Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE) in the New Year Honours "for services to the global development of the Internet", and was formally invested on 16 July 2004.[9][51]
- On 21 July 2004, he was presented with an honorary Doctor of Science degree from Lancaster University.[52]
- On 27 January 2005, he was named Greatest Briton of 2004, both for his achievements and for displaying the key British characteristics of "diffidence, determination, a sharp sense of humour and adaptability", as put by David Hempleman-Adams, a panel member.[53]
- In 2007, Berners-Lee received the Academy of Achievement's Golden Plate Award.
- In 2007, he was ranked Joint First, alongside Albert Hofmann, in The Telegraph's list of 100 greatest living geniuses.[54]
- On 13 June 2007, he received the Order of Merit, becoming one of only 24 living members entitled to hold the honour, and to use the post-nominals 'O.M.' after their name.[55] (The Order of Merit is within the personal bestowal of The Queen, and does not require recommendation by ministers or the Prime Minister)
- He was awarded the 2008 IEEE/RSE Wolfson James Clerk Maxwell Award, for "conceiving and further developing the World Wide Web".[56]
- On 2 December 2008, Berners-Lee was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Manchester. His parents worked on the Manchester Mark 1 in the 1940s and 50s.[57]
- On 21 April 2009, he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid.[58]
- On 28 April 2009, he was elected a foreign associate of the United States National Academy of Sciences.
- On 8 June 2009, he received the Webby Award for Lifetime Achievement, at the awards ceremony held in New York City.[59]
- In October 2009, he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam[60][61]
- On 30 March 2011, he was one of the first three recipients of the Mikhail Gorbachev award for "The Man Who Changed the World", at the inuagural awards ceremony held in London. The other recipients were Evans Wadongo for solar power development and anti-poverty work in Africa, and media mogul Ted Turner.[62]
- On 26 May 2011, Berners-Lee was awarded with an honorary Doctor of Science degree from Harvard University.[63]
- In 2011, he was inducted into IEEE Intelligent Systems' AI's Hall of Fame for the "significant contributions to the field of AI and intelligent systems".[64][65]
- In 2012, Berners-Lee was inducted into the Internet Hall of Fame by the Internet Society.[66]
- On 27 July 2012, Berners-Lee was recognised for the invention of the World Wide Web in the 2012 Summer Olympics opening ceremony.[12]
- On 3 December 2012, the Sultan of Oman conferred the Sultan Qaboos Order for Culture, Science and Arts (First Class) on Sir Tim Berners-Lee.[67][68]
See also
- Eelco van Asperen
- History of the World Wide Web
- Kevin Hughes (www)
- libwww
- Mundaneum
- Network neutrality
- Paul Otlet
- Semantic Web
- Bob Taylor
- Vannevar Bush
Publications
- Berners-Lee, Tim; Mark Fischetti (1999). Weaving the Web: The Original Design and Ultimate Destiny of the World Wide Web by its inventor. Britain: Orion Business. ISBN 0-7528-2090-7.
- Berners-Lee, T. (2010). "Long Live the Web". Scientific American 303 (6): 80–85. doi:10.1038/scientificamerican1210-80. PMID 21141362. edit
- Shadbolt, N.; Berners-Lee, T. (2008). "Web science emerges". Scientific American 299 (4): 76–81. doi:10.1038/scientificamerican1008-76. PMID 18847088. edit
- Berners-Lee, T.; Hall, W.; Hendler, J.; Shadbolt, N.; Weitzner, D. (2006). "Computer Science: Enhanced: Creating a Science of the Web". Science 313 (5788): 769–771. doi:10.1126/science.1126902. PMID 16902115. edit
Notes
- ^ a b c d e f "Berners-Lee Longer Biography". World Wide Web Consortium. http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/Longer.html. Retrieved 18 January 2011.
- ^ "Lunch with the FT: Tim Berners Lee". Financial Times.
- ^ "cern.info.ch – Tim Berners-Lee's proposal". Info.cern.ch. http://info.cern.ch/Proposal.html. Retrieved 21 December 2011.
- ^ a b Quittner, Joshua (29 March 1999). "Tim Berners Lee—Time 100 People of the Century". Time Magazine. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,990627,00.html. "He wove the World Wide Web and created a mass medium for the 21st century. The World Wide Web is Berners-Lee's alone. He designed it. He loosed it on the world. And he more than anyone else has fought to keep it open, nonproprietary and free."
- ^ "Draper Prize". Massachusetts Institute of Technology. http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/draper-prize.html. Retrieved 25 May 2008.
- ^ "People". The Web Science Research Initiative. Archived from the original on 28 June 2008. http://web.archive.org/web/20080628052526/http://webscience.org/about/people/. Retrieved 17 January 2011.
- ^ "MIT Center for Collective Intelligence (homepage)". Cci.mit.edu. http://cci.mit.edu. Retrieved 15 August 2010.
- ^ "MIT Center for Collective Intelligence (people)". Cci.mit.edu. http://cci.mit.edu/people/index.html. Retrieved 15 August 2010.
- ^ a b c "Web's inventor gets a knighthood". BBC. 31 December 2003. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3357073.stm. Retrieved 25 May 2008.
- ^ "Timothy Berners-Lee Elected to National Academy of Sciences". Dr. Dobb's Journal. http://www.ddj.com/217200450. Retrieved 9 June 2009.
- ^ "72 New Members Chosen By Academy" (Press release). United States National Academy of Sciences. 28 April 2009. http://www8.nationalacademies.org/onpinews/newsitem.aspx?RecordID=04282009. Retrieved 17 January 2011.
- ^ a b c Friar, Karen (28 July 2012). "Sir Tim Berners-Lee stars in Olympics opening ceremony". ZDNet. http://www.zdnet.com/uk/sir-tim-berners-lee-stars-in-olympics-opening-ceremony-7000001744/. Retrieved 28 July 2012.
- ^ a b Berners-Lee, Tim (27 July 2012). "This is for everyone". Twitter. https://twitter.com/timberners_lee/status/228960085672599552. Retrieved 28 July 2012.
- ^ http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b022ff6c-f673-11e1-9fff-00144feabdc0.html#axzz25mg7CPq7
- ^ "Berners-Lee's original proposal to CERN". World Wide Web Consortium. March 1989. http://www.w3.org/History/1989/proposal.html. Retrieved 25 May 2008.
- ^ a b Stewart, Bill. "Tim Berners-Lee, Robert Cailliau, and the World Wide Web". http://www.livinginternet.com/w/wi_lee.htm. Retrieved 22 July 2010.
- ^ a b Tim Berners-Lee. "Frequently asked questions". World Wide Web Consortium. http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/FAQ.html. Retrieved 22 July 2010.
- ^ Tim Berners-Lee. "Answers for Young People". World Wide Web Consortium. http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/Kids. Retrieved 25 May 2008.
- ^ "Biography and Video Interview of Timothy Berners-Lee at Academy of Achievement". Achievement.org. http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/ber1int-1. Retrieved 21 December 2011.
- ^ "Ten Years Public Domain for the Original Web Software". CERN. http://tenyears-www.web.cern.ch/tenyears-www/Story/WelcomeStory.html. Retrieved 21 July 2010.
- ^ Roads and Crossroads of Internet History Chapter 4: Birth of the Web
- ^ "Tim Berners-Lee. Confirming The Exact Location Where the Web Was Invented". http://davidgalbraith.org/uncategorized/the-exact-location-where-the-web-was-invented/2343/.
- ^ -CERN[citation needed]
- ^ "Welcome to info.cern.ch, the website of the world's first-ever web server". CERN. http://info.cern.ch/. Retrieved 25 May 2008.
- ^ "World Wide Web—Archive of world's first website". World Wide Web Consortium. http://www.w3.org/History/19921103-hypertext/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html. Retrieved 25 May 2008.
- ^ "World Wide Web—First mentioned on USENET". Google. 6 August 1991. http://groups.google.co.uk/group/alt.hypertext/msg/06dad279804cb3ba?dmode=source&hl=en. Retrieved 25 May 2008.
- ^ "The original post to alt.hypertalk describing the WorldWideWeb Project". Google Groups. Google. 9 August 1991. http://groups.google.com/group/comp.archives/browse_thread/thread/9fb079523583d42/37bb6783d03a3b0d?lnk=st&q=&rnum=2&hl=en#37bb6783d03a3b0d. Retrieved 25 May 2008.
- ^ "Patent Policy—5 February 2004". World Wide Web Consortium. 5 February 2004. http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Patent-Policy-20040205/. Retrieved 25 May 2008.
- ^ John W. Klooster (2009) Icons of invention: the makers of the modern world from Gutenberg to Gates p.611. ABC-CLIO, 2009
- ^ Berners-Lee, T.; Hendler, J.; Lassila, O. (2001). "The Semantic Web". Scientific American 284 (5): 34. doi:10.1038/scientificamerican0501-34. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-semantic-web. edit
- ^ "Tim Berners-Lee, World Wide Web inventor, to join ECS". World Wide Web Consortium. 2 December 2004. http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/news/658. Retrieved 25 May 2008.
- ^ "Berners-Lee 'sorry' for slashes". BBC. 14 October 2009. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8306631.stm. Retrieved 14 October 2009.
- ^ "Tim Berners-Lee". World Wide Web Consortium. 10 June 2009. http://www.w3.org/News/2009#item98. Retrieved 10 July 2009.
- ^ "Ordnance Survey offers free data access". BBC News. 1 April 2010. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8597779.stm. Retrieved 3 April 2009.
- ^ FAQ—World Wide Web Foundation Retrieved 18 January 2011
- ^ Ghosh, Pallab (15 September 2008). "Web creator rejects net tracking". BBC. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7613201.stm. Retrieved 15 September 2008. "Warning sounded on web's future."
- ^ Cellan-Jones, Rory (March 2008). "Web creator rejects net tracking". BBC. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7299875.stm. Retrieved 25 May 2008. "Sir Tim rejects net tracking like Phorm."
- ^ Adams, Stephen (March 2008). "Web inventor's warning on spy software". The Daily Telegraph (London). http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1581938/Web-inventor%27s-warning-on-spy-software.html. Retrieved 25 May 2008. "Sir Tim rejects net tracking like Phorm."
- ^ Berners, Tim (4 May 2011). "Tim Berners-Lee, Long Live the Web: A Call for Continued Open Standards and Neutrality, Scientific American Magazine, December 2010". Scientific American. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=long-live-the-web. Retrieved 21 December 2011.
- ^ Computing, Government (23 May 2012). "Government commits £10m to Open Data Institute". The Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/government-computing-network/2012/may/23/open-data-institute-plans-published-cabinet-office?newsfeed=true.
- ^ "The World-Wide Web Hall of Fame". Best of the Web Directory. http://botw.org/1994/awards/fame.html.
- ^ "Software System Award". ACM Awards. Association for Computing Machinery. http://awards.acm.org/homepage.cfm?srt=all&awd=149. Retrieved 25 October 2011 (2011-10-25).
- ^ The London Gazette: (Supplement) no. 54794. pp. 24–25. 13 June 1997. Retrieved 28 July 2012.
- ^ "Honorary Graduates of University of Essex". http://www.essex.ac.uk/honorary_graduates/hg/profiles/1998/t-berners-lee.aspx. Retrieved 15 December 2011.
- ^ "Open University's online graduation". BBC NEWS. 31. March 2000. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/696176.stm. Retrieved 22 September 2010.
- ^ "Book of Members, 1780–2010: Chapter B". American Academy of Arts and Sciences. http://www.amacad.org/publications/BookofMembers/ChapterB.pdf. Retrieved 24 June 2011.
- ^ "100 great Britons – A complete list". Daily Mail. 21 August 2002. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-134458/100-great-Britons--A-complete-list.html. Retrieved 2 August 2012.
- ^ Royal Photographic Society's Centenary Award Retrieved 13 August 2012
- ^ "Fellow Awards | Fellows Home". Computerhistory.org. 11 January 2010. http://www.computerhistory.org/fellowawards/index.php?id=88. Retrieved 15 August 2010.
- ^ "Millennium Technology Prize 2004 awarded to inventor of World Wide Web". Millennium Technology Prize. Archived from the original on 30 August 2007. http://web.archive.org/web/20070830111145/http://www.technologyawards.org/index.php?m=2&s=1&id=16&sm=4. Retrieved 25 May 2008.
- ^ "Creator of the web turns knight". BBC. 16 July 2004. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3899723.stm. Retrieved 25 May 2008.
- ^ "Lancaster University Honorary Degrees, July 2004". Lancaster University. http://domino.lancs.ac.uk/info/lunews.nsf/I/2768F56EB38B32F780256ECC00404E69. Retrieved 25 May 2008.
- ^ "Three loud cheers for the father of the web". The Daily Telegraph (London). 28 January 2005. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1482211/Three-loud-cheers-for-the-father-of-the-web.html. Retrieved 25 May 2008.
- ^ ""Top 100 living geniuses" ''The Daily Telegraph'' 28 October 2007". The Daily Telegraph. 30 October 2007. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1567544/Top-100-living-geniuses.html. Retrieved 21 December 2011.
- ^ "Web inventor gets Queen's honour". BBC. 13 June 2007. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6750395.stm. Retrieved 25 May 2008.
- ^ "IEEE/RSE Wolfson James Clerk Maxwell Award Recipients". IEEE. http://www.ieee.org/documents/maxwell_rl.pdf. Retrieved 4 October 2011 (2011-10-04).
- ^ "Scientific pioneers honoured by The University of Manchester". manchester.ac.uk. 2 December 2008. http://www.manchester.ac.uk/aboutus/news/display/?id=4216. Retrieved 10 October 2011.
- ^ "Universidad Politécnica de Madrid: Berners-Lee y Vinton G. Cerf—Doctores Honoris Causa por la UPM". http://www2.upm.es/portal/site/institucional/menuitem.fa77d63875fa4490b99bfa04dffb46a8/?vgnextoid=c5d0492bf33c0210VgnVCM10000009c7648aRCRD. Retrieved 15 August 2010.
- ^ Press Release: Sir Tim Berners Lee, Inventor of the World Wide Web, to receive Webby Lifetime Award At the 13th Annual Webby Awards Webby Awards.com Retrieved 21 January 2011
- ^ Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (22 July 2008). "Uitvinder World Wide Web krijgt eredoctoraat Vrije Universiteit" (in Dutch). http://www.vu.nl/nl/Images/pb%2009.082%20Eredoctoraat_tcm9-94528.pdf. Retrieved 22 July 2009.
- ^ NU.nl (22 July 2008). "'Bedenker' wereldwijd web krijgt eredoctoraat VU" (in Dutch). http://www.nu.nl/internet/2046688/bedenker-wereldwijd-web-krijgt-eredoctoraat-vu.html. Retrieved 22 July 2009.
- ^ "Gorbachev honours 'world changers'". Press Association. 31 March 2011. http://www.google.com/hostednews/ukpress/article/ALeqM5jummRWAweyuH44pHVFYaq6rzCpDQ?docId=N0315631301520820555A. Retrieved 11 August 2012.
- ^ Harvard awards 9 honorary degrees news.harvard.edu Retrieved 11 June 2011
- ^ "AI's Hall of Fame". IEEE Intelligent Systems (IEEE Computer Society) 26 (4): 5–15. 2011. doi:10.1109/MIS.2011.64. http://www.computer.org/cms/Computer.org/ComputingNow/homepage/2011/0811/rW_IS_AIsHallofFame.pdf. edit
- ^ "IEEE Computer Society Magazine Honors Artificial Intelligence Leaders". DigitalJournal.com. 24 August 2011 (2011-08-24). http://www.digitaljournal.com/pr/399442. Retrieved 18 September 2011 (2011-09-18). Press release source: PRWeb (Vocus).
- ^ 2012 Inductees, Internet Hall of Fame website. Retrieved 24 April 2012
- ^ Times of Oman. "HM order for Web inventor". http://main.omanobserver.om/node/131793. Retrieved 9 December 2012.
- ^ Al Shabiba Newspaper. "جلالته يمنح وسام السلطان قابوس للثقافة والعلوم والفنون للسير تيم بيرنيرز لي [ARABIC"]. http://shabiba.com/News/Article-10743.aspx. Retrieved 9 December 2012.
Further reading
- Tim Berners-Lee and the Development of the World Wide Web (Unlocking the Secrets of Science), Ann Gaines (Mitchell Lane Publishers, 2001) ISBN 1-58415-096-3
- Tim Berners-Lee: Inventor of the World Wide Web (Ferguson's Career Biographies), Melissa Stewart (Ferguson Publishing Company, 2001) ISBN 0-89434-367-X children's biography
- Weaving the Web Berners-Lee, Tim, with Fischetti, Mark (Harper Collins Publishers,1999) ISBN 0-06-251586-1(cloth) ISBN 0-06-251587-X(paper)
- How the Web was Born: The Story of the World Wide Web Robert Cailliau, James Gillies, R. Cailliau (Oxford University Press, 2000) ISBN 0-19-286207-3
- Tim Berners-Lee Gives the Web a New Definition
- BBC2 Newsnight – Transcript of video interview of Berners-Lee on the read/write Web
- Technology Review interview
External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Tim Berners-Lee
Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Tim Berners-Lee
- Tim Berners-Lee on Twitter
- timbl on identi.ca
- Tim Berners-Lee at TED
- Tim Berners-Lee at the Internet Movie Database
- Tim Berners-Lee at the Notable Names Database
- Works by or about Tim Berners-Lee in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
- Tim Berners-Lee on the W3C site
- First World Wide Web page
- Interview with Tim Berners Lee