Tim Berners-Lee
Born 1955 · Age 70
English computer scientist; inventor of the World Wide Web, HTML, URL system and HTTP. Founder of W3C, co-founder of the World Wide Web Foundation and Open Data Institute; professor and research fellow at MIT and Oxford.
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Life & Career Timeline
Born in London
Timothy John Berners-Lee was born in London to mathematicians and computer scientists Mary Lee Woods and Conway Berners-Lee.
Enters Emanuel School
Attended Emanuel School (a direct grant grammar school at the time) from 1969 to 1973.
Matriculated at The Queen's College, Oxford
Began studies in physics at The Queen's College, Oxford (1973–1976). Built a computer from spare parts while at Oxford.
Graduated Oxford with First-Class BA in Physics
Received a first-class BA (Hons) in physics from The Queen's College, Oxford.
Joined Plessey Telecommunications (first job)
After graduation worked as an engineer at Plessey in Poole, Dorset; worked on distributed transaction systems, message relays and bar code tech.
Joined D. G. Nash Ltd.
Moved to D. G. Nash in Ferndown, Dorset; created typesetting software and worked on a multitasking OS.
Six-month consultancy at CERN; created ENQUIRE
Worked as an independent contractor at CERN (June–Dec 1980). Built the ENQUIRE hypertext prototype to manage linked information.
Joined Image Computer Systems Ltd.
Left CERN and joined John Poole's Image Computer Systems Ltd in Bournemouth; ran the technical side for three years gaining networking experience.
Returned to CERN as a Fellow
Took up a fellowship at CERN to work on distributed real-time systems and system control; began work setting the stage for later Web invention.
Proposed global hypertext information system (WWW proposal)
Wrote the proposal 'Information Management: A Proposal' (12 March 1989) proposing what became the World Wide Web.
Wrote first Web client and server; first HTTP communication
Implemented the first successful HTTP client–server communication in mid-November 1990 and wrote the first browser/editor (WorldWideWeb) and server (CERN httpd) on a NeXT machine.
Published the first website (info.cern.ch)
Published the first website that described the World Wide Web project and how to set up servers and browsers (20 December 1990).
Web made available across the Internet (summer 1991)
Made the Web available to the wider Internet community in summer 1991; began evangelising the Web through 1991–1993.
Public announcement on Usenet
Posted a public invitation for collaboration on the WorldWideWeb project to Usenet (6 August 1991).
Early Web growth: ~50 servers
By 1992 there were roughly 50 web servers worldwide (early adoption phase).
Founded the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)
Founded W3C at MIT in 1994 to develop interoperable Web standards based on royalty-free technology; served as founder and director.
ACM Software System Award (co-recipient)
Received the ACM Software System Award (1995) for the creation of the World Wide Web.
Published 'Weaving the Web' and became 3Com Founders Chair
Published Weaving the Web (1999) and in 1999 became the first holder of the 3Com Founders chair at MIT (3Com Founders Professor of Engineering).
Elected Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS)
Elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society in recognition of contributions to computing and the Web.
Knighted by Queen Elizabeth II (KBE)
Was knighted in the 2004 New Year Honours "for services to the global development of the Internet"; invested formally on 16 July 2004.
Received Millennium Technology Prize (€1 million)
Awarded the inaugural Millennium Technology Prize in 2004 (prize value €1,000,000).
Accepted chair in Computer Science at University of Southampton
Accepted a chair at the School of Electronics and Computer Science, University of Southampton, to work on the Semantic Web (December 2004).
Charles Stark Draper Prize
Awarded the National Academy of Engineering's Charles Stark Draper Prize (2007) among other honors that year.
Appointed to the Order of Merit (OM)
Appointed to the Order of Merit (OM), a personal honour limited to a small number of living members.
Web Science Research Initiative / Web Science Trust leadership
Co-directed Web Science Research Initiative and later served as a founder/director of the Web Science Trust to formalize multidisciplinary Web research.
Elected Foreign Associate of the US National Academy of Sciences
Elected as a Foreign Associate of the National Academy of Sciences (April 2009).
Launched World Wide Web Foundation
Launched the World Wide Web Foundation (WWWF) to coordinate efforts to ensure the Web benefits humanity (November 2009).
Published 'Long Live the Web' (Scientific American)
Published the essay 'Long Live the Web: A Call for Continued Open Standards and Neutrality' in Scientific American (2010).
Named to Ford Foundation Board of Trustees
In 2011 he was appointed a member of the board of trustees of the Ford Foundation.
Featured in London 2012 Olympics opening ceremony
Honoured as 'Inventor of the World Wide Web' at the London 2012 Olympic opening ceremony; tweeted 'This is for everyone' in a widely shown moment.
Co-founded the Open Data Institute (ODI)
Co-founded (with Nigel Shadbolt) and served as president of the Open Data Institute in London (2012).
Awarded Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering
Shared the inaugural Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering (18 March 2013) for ground-breaking innovation benefiting humanity.
Launched Alliance for Affordable Internet (A4AI) leadership
Led the A4AI coalition (launched October 2013) to make Internet access more affordable globally, working with Google, Facebook, Intel, Microsoft and others.
Married Rosemary Leith
Married Rosemary Leith (2014) at the Chapel Royal, St. James's Palace; Leith is a co-founder/director of the World Wide Web Foundation.
Announced as ACM A.M. Turing Award winner (2016)
Awarded the 2016 ACM A.M. Turing Award 'for inventing the World Wide Web, the first web browser, and the fundamental protocols and algorithms allowing the Web to scale'.
Joined Oxford Computer Science as Professorial Research Fellow
Joined Department of Computer Science at Oxford University as a professorial research fellow and as a fellow of Christ Church (October 2016).
Declared support for Encrypted Media Extensions (EME)
In March 2017 publicly supported the EME W3C proposal (acknowledging DRM inevitability); W3C approved the final spec in July and it became a recommendation in September 2017.
Received ACM Turing Award (ceremony)
Formally received the 2016 ACM A.M. Turing Award at an awards ceremony on 4 April 2017.
Solid project leadership and sabbatical from MIT
Led the Solid project (originating from MIT's Decentralized Information Group) and took time from MIT to work on Inrupt/Solid full-time to promote user data ownership.
Announced Inrupt to commercialize Solid
Announced Inrupt, an open-source startup to build a commercial ecosystem around Solid, a project to give users control of their personal data (30 Sep 2018).
Advisor role at MeWe (publicly noted)
Listed as an advisor to social network MeWe; presence noted in media reporting by 2019 (role later criticized in press for platform content).
Launched 'Contract for the Web'
At the Internet Governance Forum in Berlin, launched the Contract for the Web (Nov 2019) to secure commitments from governments, companies and citizens to protect the Web from misuse.
Sold Web source code as NFT via Sotheby's
Auctioned the World Wide Web's source code as a non-fungible token (23–30 June 2021); sold for USD 5,434,500 (reported) with proceeds to fund initiatives with Rosemary Leith.
Joined advisory board of Proton Foundation
Named an advisory board member of the Proton Foundation (noted since 2021).
Awarded Seoul Peace Prize (Sept 2022)
Received the Seoul Peace Prize in September 2022 for work promoting data sovereignty and decentralizing the web.
Continued professorial roles and emeritus posts
Listed as professorial research fellow at Oxford and professor emeritus at MIT CSAIL; continues to lead efforts like W3C (emeritus director) and Inrupt advisory/CTO roles.
Active public intellectual and publications (ongoing)
Continues to publish essays, give major talks (TEDs, Richard Dimbleby Lecture 2019), and lead advocacy on net neutrality, open data and data sovereignty; maintains leadership of Solid/Inrupt initiatives.
Key Achievement Ages
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