Tim Berners-Lee

Tim Berners-Lee (also known as Sir Timothy John Berners-Lee) is a British computer scientist best known for inventing the World Wide Web. He was born on June 8, 1955, in London, England.

Early Life and Education[edit | edit source]

Berners-Lee was born to parents who were both mathematicians and computer scientists. They worked on the first commercially-built computer, the Ferranti Mark I. He attended Sheen Mount Primary School before moving on to London's independent Emanuel School from 1969 to 1973. He studied physics at Queen's College, Oxford, from 1973 to 1976, earning a first-class degree.

Career[edit | edit source]

After graduating from Oxford, Berners-Lee worked as an engineer at the telecommunications company Plessey in Poole. In 1980, while working at CERN, the European Particle Physics Laboratory in Geneva, he first described the concept of a global system, based on the concept of 'hypertext', that would allow researchers anywhere to share information. He also built a prototype system named ENQUIRE.

In 1989, Berners-Lee wrote a proposal for what would eventually become the World Wide Web. The first website, http://info.cern.ch, was hosted on Berners-Lee's NeXT computer. The website, which described the basic features of the web, was made publicly available on August 6, 1991.

Recognition and Awards[edit | edit source]

Berners-Lee has received numerous recognitions for his contributions to the internet and information technology. He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in the 2004 New Year Honours "for services to the global development of the Internet", and was awarded the Order of Merit in 2007. In 2016, he received the ACM Turing Award "for inventing the World Wide Web, the first web browser, and the fundamental protocols and algorithms allowing the Web to scale".

Personal Life[edit | edit source]

Berners-Lee is married to Rosemary Leith, a Canadian internet and banking entrepreneur. They live in the United States and are co-founders of the Web Foundation, which aims to "establish the open web as a global public good and a basic right".