Sir Tim Berners-Lee
is a British computer scientist who invented what is undoubtedly one of the
most revolutionary inventions of the 20th century—the World Wide Web (WWW). A
qualified software engineer who was working at CERN when he came up with the
idea of a global network system, Sir Tim is also credited for creating the
world’s first web browser and editor. He founded the World Wide Web Foundation
and directs the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). Both of his parents worked on
the Ferranti Mark I, the first commercial computer, and thus it is not
surprising that he too chose the field of computers. But what is surprising is
the phenomenal impact his idea of a global network has had on the world of
information and technology. An alumnus of the University of Oxford, he realized
the need for a global communication network while working at CERN as the
researchers from all over the world needed to share their data with each other.
By the late 1980s he had drawn up a proposal for creating a global hypertext
document system using the internet. A few more years of pioneering work in the
field led to the birth of the World Wide Web making Berners-Lee one of the most
significant inventors of the modern era.
Career
·
He was appointed as an engineer at the telecommunications company,
Plessey in Poole after completing his studies. He remained there for two years,
working on distributed transaction systems, message relays, and bar code
technology.
·
He left Plessey in 1978 and joined D. G. Nash Ltd. In this job he wrote
typesetting software for intelligent printers and a multitasking operating
system.
·
In the late 1970s he began working as an independent consultant and
worked for many companies, including CERN where he worked from June to December
1980 as a consultant software engineer.
·
While at CERN he wrote a program called “Enquire” for his own personal
use. It was a simple hypertext program which laid the conceptual foundation for
the development of the World Wide Web in future.
·
He started working at John Poole’s Image Computer Systems, Ltd. in 1981.
For the next three years he worked on the company’s technical side which
enabled him to gain experience in computer networking. His work included real
time control firmware, graphics and communications software, and a generic
macro language.
·
He returned to CERN in 1984 after receiving a fellowship there. During
the 1980s thousands of people were working at CERN and they needed to share
information and data with each other. Much of the work was done by email and
the scientists had to keep track of different things simultaneously. Tim
realized that a simpler and more efficient method of data sharing had to be
devised.
·
In 1989, he wrote a proposal for a more effective communication system
within the organization which eventually led to the conceptualization of the
World Wide Web—an information sharing system that could be implemented
throughout the world.
·
The world’s first ever website, Info.cern.ch, was built at CERN and put
online on 6th August 1991, ushering in a new era in the field of communication
and technology. The site provided information of what the World Wide Web was
and how it could be used for information sharing.
·
He established the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology’s Laboratory for Computer Science in 1994. The W3C
decided that its technologies should be royalty-free so that anyone could adopt
them.
·
He became a professor in the Computer Science Department at the
University of Southampton, UK, in December 2004. There he worked on the
Semantic Web.
·
In 2006, he became the Co-Director of the Web Science Trust which was
launched to analyze the World Wide Web and devise solutions to optimize its
usage and design. He also serves as the Director of the World Wide Web
Foundation, started in 2009.
·
Along with Professor Nigel Shadbolt, he is one of the key figures behind
data.gov.uk, a UK Government project to make non-personal UK government data
more accessible to the public.
Major Works
·
His invention, the World Wide Web, is counted among the most significant
inventions of the 20th century. The web revolutionized the world of information
and technology and has opened up several new avenues.
Awards & Achievements
·
He was presented with The Software System Award from the Association for
Computing Machinery (ACM) in 1995.
·
He was named as one of the 100 Most Important People of the 20th century
by the Time Magazine in 1999.
·
He was made the Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE) in
the New Year Honours "for services to the global development of the
Internet" in 2004.
·
In 2013, he became one of five Internet and Web pioneers awarded the
inaugural Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering.
Read more at
http://www.thefamouspeople.com/profiles/tim-berners-lee-5475.php#44qLlLDlGLYSvGUs.99
