Timothy Berners-Lee
Timothy Berners-Lee is a computer scientist, best known as the inventor of the World Wide Web. He was honored as the “Inventor of the World Wide Web” during the 2012 Summer Olympics opening ceremony. In 2009, he was elected as a foreign associate of the United States National Academy of Sciences. And in 2004, Berners-Lee was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for his pioneering work.
Berners-Lee graduated from Queens College, Oxford. He worked as an independent contractor at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) from June to December 1980. While there, he proposed using hypertext to facilitate sharing and updating information among researchers. Over a decade later, he built the first website at CERN, and it was first put online in August of 1991.
In November 2009, Berners-Lee launched the World Wide Web Foundation “to tackle the fundamental obstacles to realizing his vision of an open Web available, usable, and valuable for everyone.” In 2013, the Alliance for Affordable Internet was launched, and Berners-Lee is leading the coalition of public and private organizations, including Google, Facebook, Intel, and Microsoft.
In 2013, Berners-Lee was one of five Internet and Web pioneers awarded the inaugural Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering. He was also awarded an honorary Doctor of Science degree from the University of St. Andrews. And in 2012, Berners-Lee was inducted into the Internet Hall of Fame by the Internet Society.
