Tim Berners-Lee

Professor
Sir Tim Berners-Lee
OM KBE FRS RDI FRSA DFBCS FREng
Sir Tim Berners Lee arriving at the Guildhall to receive the Honorary Freedom of the City of London
Berners-Lee in 2014
Born
Timothy John Berners-Lee

(1955-06-08) 8 June 1955 (age 69)
London, England
Other namesTimBL
TBL
EducationThe Queen's College, Oxford (BA)
Known forInvention of the World Wide Web
Spouses
Nancy Carlson
​
​
(m. 1990; div. 2011)​
​
(m. 2014)​
Children2 children; 3 step-children
Parents
Awards
Scientific career
Institutions
Websitew3.org/People/Berners-Lee
Signature

Sir Timothy John Berners-Lee (born 8 June 1955),[1] also known as TimBL, is an English computer scientist best known as the inventor of the World Wide Web, the HTML markup language, the URL system, and HTTP. He is a professorial research fellow at the University of Oxford[2] and a professor emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).[3][4]

Berners-Lee proposed an information management system on 12 March 1989[5][6] and implemented the first successful communication between a Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) client and server via the Internet in mid-November.[7][8][9][10][11] He devised and implemented the first Web browser and Web server and helped foster the Web's subsequent explosive development. He is the founder and director of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), which oversees the continued development of the Web. He co-founded (with Rosemary Leith) the World Wide Web Foundation. In April 2009, he was elected as Foreign Associate of the National Academy of Sciences.[12][13]

Berners-Lee was previously a senior researcher and holder of the 3Com founder's chair at the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL).[14] He is a director of the Web Science Research Initiative (WSRI)[15] and a member of the advisory board of the MIT Center for Collective Intelligence.[16][17] In 2011, he was named as a member of the board of trustees of the Ford Foundation.[18] He is a founder and president of the Open Data Institute and is currently an advisor at social network MeWe.[19] In 2004, Berners-Lee was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for his pioneering work.[20][21] He received the 2016 Turing Award "for inventing the World Wide Web, the first web browser, and the fundamental protocols and algorithms allowing the Web to scale".[22] 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.[23]

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference whoswho was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ "Tim Berners-Lee". Department of Computer Science. Retrieved 27 May 2020.
  3. ^ "Sir Tim Berners-Lee joins Oxford's Department of Computer Science". ox.ac.uk. University of Oxford. 27 October 2016. Retrieved 18 September 2018.
  4. ^ "Tim Berners-Lee | MIT CSAIL". www.csail.mit.edu. Retrieved 19 September 2021.
  5. ^ Foundation, Web (12 March 2019). "30 years on, what's next #ForTheWeb?". World Wide Web Foundation.
  6. ^ "info.cern.ch – Tim Berners-Lee's proposal". cern.ch. Info.cern.ch. Retrieved 21 December 2011.
  7. ^ Tim Berners Lee's own reference. The exact date is unknown.
  8. ^ Berners-Lee, Tim; Mark Fischetti (1999). Weaving the Web: The Original Design and Ultimate Destiny of the World Wide Web by its inventor. Britain: Orion Business. ISBN 978-0-7528-2090-3.
  9. ^ Berners-Lee, T. (2010). "Long Live the Web". Scientific American. 303 (6): 80–85. Bibcode:2010SciAm.303f..80B. doi:10.1038/scientificamerican1210-80. PMID 21141362.
  10. ^ Shadbolt, N.; Berners-Lee, T. (2008). "Web science emerges". Scientific American. 299 (4): 76–81. Bibcode:2008SciAm.299d..76S. doi:10.1038/scientificamerican1008-76. PMID 18847088.
  11. ^ Berners-Lee, T.; Hall, W.; Hendler, J.; Shadbolt, N.; Weitzner, D. (2006). "Computer Science: Enhanced: Creating a Science of the Web". Science. 313 (5788): 769–771. doi:10.1126/science.1126902. PMID 16902115. S2CID 5104030.
  12. ^ "Timothy Berners-Lee Elected to National Academy of Sciences". Dr. Dobb's Journal. Retrieved 9 June 2009.
  13. ^ "72 New Members Chosen By Academy" (Press release). United States National Academy of Sciences. 28 April 2009. Retrieved 17 January 2011.
  14. ^ Schorow, Stephanie (5 January 2007). "Draper Prize". mit.edu. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Retrieved 25 May 2008.
  15. ^ "People". The Web Science Research Initiative. Archived from the original on 28 June 2008. Retrieved 17 January 2011.
  16. ^ "MIT Center for Collective Intelligence (homepage)". mit.edu. Cci.mit.edu. Retrieved 15 August 2010.
  17. ^ "MIT Center for Collective Intelligence (people)". Cci.mit.edu. Archived from the original on 11 June 2010. Retrieved 15 August 2010.
  18. ^ Bratt, Steve (29 September 2011). "Sir Tim Berners-Lee Named to the Ford Foundation Board". World Wide Foundation. Retrieved 22 August 2017.
  19. ^ Shukman, Harry; Bridge, Mark (8 January 2019). "Sir Tim Berners-Lee's app MeWe is used by neo-Nazis and perverts". The Times. ISSN 0140-0460. Retrieved 12 March 2019.
  20. ^ "Web's inventor gets a knighthood". BBC News. 31 December 2003. Retrieved 10 November 2015.
  21. ^ "Creator of the web turns knight". BBC News. 16 July 2004. Retrieved 10 November 2015.
  22. ^ Cite error: The named reference Asso. Computing Machinery-2016 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  23. ^ Quittner, Joshua (29 March 1999). "Tim Berners Lee—Time 100 People of the Century". Time Magazine. Archived from the original on 16 October 2007.