Tim Berners-Lee - Inventor of the Web

Life & Background

Full Name: Sir Timothy John Berners-Lee

Born: 8 June 1955, London, England

Parents were both mathematicians who worked on the Ferranti Mark I, the first commercially-built computer.

Developed an early hypertext system called Enquire in 1980 at CERN.

Attended Emanuel School (1969–1973) and then The Queen’s College, Oxford, earning a BA in Physics in 1976.

Proposed the project that became the World Wide Web in 1989 while at CERN.
Developed the first successful HTTP client and server in mid-November 1989.
Invented HTML, HTTP, and URLs around 1990.
Created the first web browser/editor, WorldWideWeb (later renamed Nexus) in 1990.
Developed the Line Mode Browser following soon after.
Founded the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) in 1994 to guide web standards.
Launched the World Wide Web Foundation and co-founded the Open Data Institute; now leads the Solid platform initiative for decentralized web.
Started the first web directory, the WWW Virtual Library, in 1991.

Knighted in 2004 by Queen Elizabeth II.

Received the Turing Award in 2016 for inventing the Web, the first browser, and core protocols.

Awards include Millennium Technology Prize, Draper Prize, Order of Merit, among others.

Received a MacArthur “genius grant” in 1998 for pioneering web technologies.

Berners-Lee has continuously advocated for the Web to remain open and free, opposing control by any single entity.