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Sir Timothy John Berners-Lee (born 8 June 1955), also known as TimBL, is an English computer scientist best known as the inventor of the
World Wide Web The World Wide Web (WWW), commonly known as the Web, is an information system enabling documents and other web resources to be accessed over the Internet. Documents and downloadable media are made available to the network through web se ...
. He is a Professorial Fellow of Computer Science at the
University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the world's second-oldest university in contin ...
and a professor at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern t ...
(MIT). Berners-Lee proposed an information management system on 12 March 1989, then implemented the first successful communication between a Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) client and server via the
Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a ''internetworking, network of networks'' that consists ...
in mid-November. Berners-Lee is the director of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), which oversees the continued development of the Web. He co-founded (with his then wife-to-be
Rosemary Leith Rosemary Blaire Leith, Lady Berners-Lee (born in September 1961) is a director of both profit and nonprofit organizations. Leith co-founded the World Wide Web Foundation together with her husband-to-be, Tim Berners-Lee in 2009. Life Leith was ...
) the World Wide Web Foundation. He is a senior researcher and holder of the
3Com 3Com Corporation was an American digital electronics manufacturer best known for its computer network products. The company was co-founded in 1979 by Robert Metcalfe, Howard Charney and others. Bill Krause joined as President in 1981. Metcalfe e ...
founder's 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 2011, he was named as a member of the board of trustees of the Ford Foundation. He is a founder and president of the Open Data Institute and is currently an advisor at social network MeWe. He devised and implemented the first Web browser and Web server, and helped foster the Web's subsequent explosive development. He currently directs the W3 Consortium, developing tools and standards to further the Web's potential. In April 2009, he was elected as Foreign Associate of the National Academy of Sciences. In 2004, Berners-Lee was knighted by Queen
Elizabeth II Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary; 21 April 1926 – 8 September 2022) was Queen of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms from 6 February 1952 until her death in 2022. She was queen regnant of 32 sovereign states during ...
for his pioneering work. He was named in ''Time'' magazine's list of the 100 Most Important People of the 20th century and has received a number of other accolades for his invention. He was honoured as the "Inventor of the World Wide Web" during the 2012 Summer Olympics opening ceremony in which he appeared working with a vintage NeXT Computer. He tweeted "This is for everyone" which appeared in LED lights attached to the chairs of the audience. He received the 2016
Turing Award The ACM A. M. Turing Award is an annual prize given by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) for contributions of lasting and major technical importance to computer science. It is generally recognized as the highest distinction in compu ...
"for inventing the World Wide Web, the first web browser, and the fundamental protocols and algorithms allowing the Web to scale".


Early life and education

Berners-Lee was born on 8 June 1955 in London, England, the eldest of the four children of Mary Lee Woods and Conway Berners-Lee; his brother Mike is a professor of ecology and climate change management. His parents were computer scientists who worked on the first commercially built computer, the Ferranti Mark 1. He attended Sheen Mount Primary School, and then went on to attend south-west London's
Emanuel School Emanuel School is an independent, co-educational day school in Battersea, south-west London. The school was founded in 1594 by Anne Sackville, Lady Dacre and Queen Elizabeth I and occupies a 12-acre (4.9 ha) site close to Clapham Junction ...
from 1969 to 1973, at the time a direct grant grammar school, which became an independent school in 1975. A keen trainspotter as a child, he learnt about electronics from tinkering with a model railway. He studied at
The Queen's College, Oxford The Queen's College is a constituent college of the University of Oxford, England. The college was founded in 1341 by Robert de Eglesfield in honour of Philippa of Hainault. It is distinguished by its predominantly neoclassical architecture, ...
, from 1973 to 1976, where he received a first-class
Bachelor of Arts Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four yea ...
degree in physics. While at university, Berners-Lee made a computer out of an old
television set A television set or television receiver, more commonly called the television, TV, TV set, telly, tele, or tube, is a device that combines a tuner, display, and loudspeakers, for the purpose of viewing and hearing television broadcasts, or using ...
, which he bought from a repair shop.


Career and research

After graduation, Berners-Lee worked as an engineer at the telecommunications company Plessey in Poole, Dorset. In 1978, he joined D. G. Nash in Ferndown, Dorset, where he helped create typesetting software for printers. Berners-Lee worked as an
independent contractor Employment is a relationship between two parties regulating the provision of paid labour services. Usually based on a contract, one party, the employer, which might be a corporation, a not-for-profit organization, a co-operative, or any o ...
at CERN from June to December 1980. While in
Geneva Geneva ( ; french: Genève ) frp, Genèva ; german: link=no, Genf ; it, Ginevra ; rm, Genevra is the second-most populous city in Switzerland (after Zürich) and the most populous city of Romandy, the French-speaking part of Switzerland. Situ ...
, he proposed a project based on the concept of
hypertext Hypertext is text displayed on a computer display or other electronic devices with references ( hyperlinks) to other text that the reader can immediately access. Hypertext documents are interconnected by hyperlinks, which are typicall ...
, to facilitate sharing and updating information among researchers. To demonstrate it, he built a prototype system named ENQUIRE. After leaving CERN in late 1980, he went to work at John Poole's Image Computer Systems, Ltd, in Bournemouth, Dorset. He ran the company's technical side for three years. The project he worked on was a " real-time remote procedure call" which gave him experience in
computer network A computer network is a set of computers sharing resources located on or provided by network nodes. The computers use common communication protocols over digital interconnections to communicate with each other. These interconnections ar ...
ing. In 1984, he returned to CERN as a fellow. In 1989, CERN was the largest Internet node in Europe and Berners-Lee saw an opportunity to join hypertext with the Internet: Berners-Lee wrote his proposal in March 1989 and, in 1990, redistributed it. It then was accepted by his manager, Mike Sendall, who called his proposals "vague, but exciting". Robert Cailliau had independently proposed a project to develop a hypertext system at CERN, and joined Berners-Lee as a partner in his efforts to get the web off the ground. They used similar ideas to those underlying the ENQUIRE system to create the World Wide Web, for which Berners-Lee designed and built the first
web browser A web browser is application software for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's screen. Browsers are used on ...
. His software also functioned as an editor (called WorldWideWeb, running on the
NeXTSTEP NeXTSTEP is a discontinued object-oriented, multitasking operating system based on the Mach kernel and the UNIX-derived BSD. It was developed by NeXT Computer in the late 1980s and early 1990s and was initially used for its range of proprieta ...
operating system), and the first Web server, CERN HTTPd (short for Hypertext Transfer Protocol daemon). Berners-Lee published the first web site, which described the project itself, on 20 December 1990; it was available to the Internet from the CERN network. The site provided an explanation of what the World Wide Web was, and how people could use a browser and set up a web server, as well as how to get started with your own website. On 6 August 1991, Berners-Lee first posted, on
Usenet Usenet () is a worldwide distributed discussion system available on computers. It was developed from the general-purpose Unix-to-Unix Copy (UUCP) dial-up network architecture. Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis conceived the idea in 1979, and it was ...
, a public invitation for collaboration with the WorldWideWeb project. In a list of 80 cultural moments that shaped the world, chosen by a panel of 25 eminent scientists, academics, writers and world leaders, the invention of the World Wide Web was ranked number one, with the entry stating, "The fastest growing communications medium of all time, the Internet has changed the shape of modern life forever. We can connect with each other instantly, all over the world." In 1994, Berners-Lee founded the W3C at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern t ...
. It comprised various companies that were willing to create standards and recommendations to improve the quality of the Web. Berners-Lee made his idea available freely, with no patent and no royalties due. The World Wide Web Consortium decided that its standards should be based on royalty-free technology, so that they easily could be adopted by anyone. Berners-Lee participated in Curl Corp's attempt to develop and promote the
Curl programming language Curl is a reflective object-oriented programming language for interactive web applications whose goal is to provide a smoother transition between formatting and programming. It makes it possible to embed complex objects in simple documents wit ...
. In 2001, Berners-Lee became a patron of the East Dorset Heritage Trust, having previously lived in Colehill in Wimborne, East Dorset. In December 2004, he accepted a chair in computer science at the School of Electronics and Computer Science,
University of Southampton , mottoeng = The Heights Yield to Endeavour , type = Public research university , established = 1862 – Hartley Institution1902 – Hartley University College1913 – Southampton University Coll ...
, Hampshire, to work on the Semantic Web. In a '' Times'' article in October 2009, Berners-Lee admitted that the initial pair of slashes ("//") in a web address were "unnecessary". He told the newspaper that he easily could have designed web addresses without the slashes. "There you go, it seemed like a good idea at the time," he said in his lighthearted apology.


Policy work

In June 2009, then-British prime minister
Gordon Brown James Gordon Brown (born 20 February 1951) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Labour Party (UK), Leader of the Labour Party from 2007 to 2010. He previously served as Chance ...
announced that Berners-Lee would work with the
UK government ga, Rialtas a Shoilse gd, Riaghaltas a Mhòrachd , image = HM Government logo.svg , image_size = 220px , image2 = Royal Coat of Arms of the United Kingdom (HM Government).svg , image_size2 = 180px , caption = Royal Arms , date_est ...
to help make data more open and accessible on the Web, building on the work of the Power of Information Task Force. 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 reuse. Commenting on the opening up of
Ordnance Survey Ordnance Survey (OS) is the national mapping agency for Great Britain. The agency's name indicates its original military purpose (see ordnance and surveying), which was to map Scotland in the wake of the Jacobite rising of 1745. There was ...
data in April 2010, Berners-Lee said: "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." In November 2009, Berners-Lee launched the World Wide Web Foundation (WWWF) in order to campaign 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". Berners-Lee is one of the pioneer voices in favour of net neutrality, and has expressed the view that ISPs should supply "connectivity with no strings attached", and should neither control nor monitor the browsing activities of customers without their expressed consent. 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." Berners-Lee participated in an open letter to the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC). He and 20 other Internet pioneers urged the FCC to cancel a vote on 14 December 2017 to uphold net neutrality. The letter was addressed to Senator
Roger Wicker Roger Frederick Wicker (born July 5, 1951) is an American attorney and politician serving as the Seniority in the United States Senate, senior United States Senate, United States senator from Mississippi, in office since 2007. A member of the Re ...
, Senator Brian Schatz, Representative Marsha Blackburn and Representative Michael F. Doyle. Berners-Lee joined the board of advisors of start-up
State.com State is a semantic web platform created by London, UK-based Equal Media Ltd. Announced in 2013, and launched in 2014, State aims to build a global opinion network using natural language processing, databases and sentiment analysis. It seek ...
, based in London. As of May 2012, he is president of the Open Data Institute, which he co-founded with Nigel Shadbolt in 2012. The Alliance for Affordable Internet (A4AI) was launched in October 2013 and Berners-Lee is leading the coalition of public and private organisations that includes
Google Google LLC () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company focusing on Search Engine, search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, software, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, ar ...
,
Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin ...
,
Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the devel ...
and
Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation, multinational technology company, technology corporation producing Software, computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at th ...
. The A4AI seeks to make Internet access more affordable so that access is broadened in the developing world, where only 31% of people are online. Berners-Lee will work with those aiming to decrease Internet access prices so that they fall below the UN Broadband Commission's worldwide target of 5% of monthly income. Berners-Lee holds the founders chair in Computer Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he heads the Decentralized Information Group and is leading
Solid Solid is one of the four fundamental states of matter (the others being liquid, gas, and plasma). The molecules in a solid are closely packed together and contain the least amount of kinetic energy. A solid is characterized by structura ...
, a joint project with the Qatar Computing Research Institute that aims to radically change the way Web applications work today, resulting in true data ownership as well as improved privacy. In October 2016, he joined the Department of Computer Science at
Oxford University Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...
as a professorial research fellow and as a
fellow A fellow is a concept whose exact meaning depends on context. In learned or professional societies, it refers to a privileged member who is specially elected in recognition of their work and achievements. Within the context of higher education ...
of Christ Church, one of the Oxford colleges. From the mid 2010s Berners-Lee initially remained neutral on the emerging Encrypted Media Extensions (EME) proposal for with its controversial
Digital Rights Management Digital rights management (DRM) is the management of legal access to digital content. Various tools or technological protection measures (TPM) such as access control technologies can restrict the use of proprietary hardware and copyrighted work ...
(DRM) implications. In March 2017 he felt he had to take a position which was to support the EME proposal. He reasoned EME's virtues whilst noting DRM was inevitable. As W3C director, he went on to approve the finalised specification in July 2017. His stance was opposed by some including
Electronic Frontier Foundation The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is an international non-profit digital rights group based in San Francisco, California. The foundation was formed on 10 July 1990 by John Gilmore, John Perry Barlow and Mitch Kapor to promote Internet ...
(EFF), the anti-DRM campaign Defective by Design and the
Free Software Foundation The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization founded by Richard Stallman on October 4, 1985, to support the free software movement, with the organization's preference for software being distributed under copyleft ("s ...
. Varied concerns raised included being not supportive of the Internet's open philosophy against commercial interests and risks of users being forced to use a particular
web browser A web browser is application software for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's screen. Browsers are used on ...
to view specific DRM content. The EFF raised a formal appeal which did not succeed and the EME specification became a formal W3C recommendation in September 2017. On 30 September 2018, Berners-Lee announced his new open-source startup Inrupt to fuel a commercial ecosystem around the
Solid Solid is one of the four fundamental states of matter (the others being liquid, gas, and plasma). The molecules in a solid are closely packed together and contain the least amount of kinetic energy. A solid is characterized by structura ...
project, which aims to give users more control over their personal data and lets them choose where the data goes, who's allowed to see certain elements and which apps are allowed to see that data. In November 2019 at the Internet Governance Forum in Berlin Berners-Lee and the WWWF launched ''
Contract for the Web Contract for the Web is an initiative by the World Wide Web Foundation in November 2019 to attempt to address issues of political manipulation, fake news, privacy violations, and other malign forces on the internet. History The initiative is th ...
'', a campaign initiative to persuade governments, companies and citizens to commit to nine principles to stop "misuse", with the warning that "if we don't act nowand act togetherto prevent the web being misused by those who want to exploit, divide and undermine, we are at risk of squandering ts potential for good.


Awards and honours

Berners-Lee has received many awards and honours. He was knighted by Queen
Elizabeth II Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary; 21 April 1926 – 8 September 2022) was Queen of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms from 6 February 1952 until her death in 2022. She was queen regnant of 32 sovereign states during ...
in the 2004 New Year Honours "for services to the global development of the Internet", and was invested formally on 16 July 2004. On 13 June 2007, he was appointed to the Order of Merit (OM), an order restricted to 24 (living) members. Bestowing membership of the Order of Merit is within the personal purview of the Queen and does not require recommendation by ministers or the Prime Minister. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2001. He was also elected as a member into the
American Philosophical Society The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communi ...
in 2004 and the
National Academy of Engineering The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) is an American nonprofit, non-governmental organization. The National Academy of Engineering is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of ...
in 2007. He has been conferred honorary degrees from a number of universities around the world, including
Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of City of Salford, Salford to ...
(his parents worked on the Manchester Mark 1 in the 1940s), Harvard and
Yale Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...
. In 2012, Berners-Lee was among the British cultural icons selected by artist Sir Peter Blake to appear in a new version of his most famous artwork – the Beatles' ''
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band ''Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band'' is the eighth studio album by the English rock band the Beatles. Released on 26May 1967, ''Sgt. Pepper'' is regarded by musicologists as an early concept album that advanced the roles of sound composi ...
'' album cover – to celebrate the British cultural figures of his life that he most admires to mark his 80th birthday. In 2013, he was awarded the inaugural Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering. On 4 April 2017, he received the 2016 ACM
Turing Award The ACM A. M. Turing Award is an annual prize given by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) for contributions of lasting and major technical importance to computer science. It is generally recognized as the highest distinction in compu ...
"for inventing the World Wide Web, the first web browser, and the fundamental protocols and algorithms allowing the Web to scale".


Personal life

Berners-Lee has said "I like to keep work and personal life separate." Berners-Lee married Nancy Carlson, an American computer programmer, in 1990. She was also working in Switzerland at the
World Health Organization The World Health Organization (WHO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for international public health. The WHO Constitution states its main objective as "the attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level o ...
. They had two children and divorced in 2011. In 2014, he married
Rosemary Leith Rosemary Blaire Leith, Lady Berners-Lee (born in September 1961) is a director of both profit and nonprofit organizations. Leith co-founded the World Wide Web Foundation together with her husband-to-be, Tim Berners-Lee in 2009. Life Leith was ...
at the
Chapel Royal The Chapel Royal is an establishment in the Royal Household serving the spiritual needs of the sovereign and the British Royal Family. Historically it was a body of priests and singers that travelled with the monarch. The term is now also appl ...
,
St. James's Palace St James's Palace is the most senior royal palace in London, the capital of the United Kingdom. The palace gives its name to the Court of St James's, which is the monarch's royal court, and is located in the City of Westminster in London. Alt ...
in London. Leith is a Canadian Internet and banking entrepreneur and a founding director of Berners-Lee's World Wide Web Foundation. The couple also collaborate on venture capital to support artificial intelligence companies. Berners-Lee was raised as an Anglican, but he turned away from religion in his youth. After he became a parent, he became a Unitarian Universalist (UU). When asked whether he believes in God, he stated: "Not in the sense of most people, I'm atheist and Unitarian Universalist." The web’s
source code In computing, source code, or simply code, is any collection of code, with or without comment (computer programming), comments, written using a human-readable programming language, usually as plain text. The source code of a Computer program, p ...
was auctioned by Sotheby’s in
London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
during 23–30 June 2021, as a
non-fungible token A non-fungible token (NFT) is a unique digital identifier that cannot be copied, substituted, or subdivided, that is recorded in a blockchain, and that is used to certify authenticity and ownership. The ownership of an NFT is recorded in the ...
(NFT) by TimBL. Selling for USD $5,434,500, it was reported the proceeds would be used to fund initiatives by TimBL and his wife,
Rosemary Leith Rosemary Blaire Leith, Lady Berners-Lee (born in September 1961) is a director of both profit and nonprofit organizations. Leith co-founded the World Wide Web Foundation together with her husband-to-be, Tim Berners-Lee in 2009. Life Leith was ...
.


References


Further reading

* ''Tim Berners-Lee's'
publications
* ''Tim Berners-Lee and the Development of the World Wide Web (Unlocking the Secrets of Science)'' (Mitchell Lane Publishers, 2001), * ''Tim Berners-Lee: Inventor of the World Wide Web (Ferguson's Career Biographies)'', Melissa Stewart (Ferguson Publishing Company, 2001), children's biography * ''How the Web was Born: The Story of the World Wide Web'', Robert Cailliau, James Gillies, R. Cailliau (Oxford University Press, 2000), * ''Weaving the Web: The Original Design and Ultimate Destiny of the World Wide Web by Its Inventor'', Tim Berners-Lee, Mark Fischetti (Paw Prints, 2008)
"Man Who Invented the World Wide Web Gives it New Definition"
''Compute Magazine'', 11 February 2011
BBC2 Newsnight – Transcript of video interview of Berners-Lee on the read/write Web

''Technology Review'' interview
*


External links

* * *
Tim Berners-Lee
on the W3C site

on W3C site


Interview with Tim Berners Lee
* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Berners-Lee, Tim 1955 births Living people People from Barnes, London People educated at Emanuel School Alumni of The Queen's College, Oxford Academics of the University of Southampton Fellows of Christ Church, Oxford Members of the Department of Computer Science, University of Oxford People associated with CERN English computer scientists English expatriates in the United States English inventors English Unitarians Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Fellows of the British Computer Society Fellows of The Queen's College, Oxford Fellows of the Royal Academy of Engineering Fellows of the Royal Society Hypertext Transfer Protocol Internet pioneers Knights Commander of the Order of the British Empire MacArthur Fellows Massachusetts Institute of Technology faculty Members of the Order of Merit Foreign associates of the National Academy of Engineering Turing Award laureates Foreign associates of the National Academy of Sciences Royal Medal winners Semantic Web people UNESCO Niels Bohr Medal recipients Unitarian Universalists Former Anglicans Webby Award winners World Wide Web Consortium Recipients of the Order of the Cross of Terra Mariana, 1st Class English atheists MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory people Members of the American Philosophical Society Honorary Fellows of the British Academy Royal Designers for Industry