SirTim Berners-LeeOM KBE FRS RDI FRSA DFBCS FREngBerners-Lee in 2024BornTimothy John Berners-Lee (1955-06-08) 8 June 1955 (age 70)London, EnglandOther namesTimBLTBLEducationQueen's College, Oxford (BA)Known forInvention of the World Wide WebSpouses Jane Northcote (m. 1976, divorced) Nancy Carlson (m. 1990; div. 2011) Rosemary Leith (m. 2014) Children2 children3 step-childrenParentsConway Berners-Lee (father)Mary Lee Woods (mother)AwardsTuring Award (2016)Queen Elizabeth Prize (2013)Foreign Associate of the National Academy of Sciences (2009)Order of Merit (2007)ACM Software System Award (1995)Scientific careerFieldsComputer scienceInstitutionsCERNMassachusetts Institute of TechnologyWorld Wide Web ConsortiumUniversity of OxfordUniversity of Southampton Websitew3.org/People/Berners-LeeSignature
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, HTML, 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 development. He is the founder and emeritus 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 2009, he was elected 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 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 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]
Early lifeBerners-Lee was born in London on 8 June 1955,[24] the son of mathematicians and computer scientists Mary Lee Berners-Lee (née Woods; 1924–2017) and Conway Berners-Lee (1921–2019). His parents were both from Birmingham and worked on the Ferranti Mark 1, the first commercially built computer. He has three younger siblings; his brother, Mike, is a professor of ecology and climate change management.
Berners-Lee attended Sheen Mount Primary School, then Emanuel School (a direct grant grammar school at the time) from 1969 to 1973.[1][20] A keen trainspotter as a child, he learnt about electronics from tinkering with a model railway.[25]
In 1976, Berners-Lee took a first in physics from The Queen's College, Oxford.[1][24] While there, he made a computer out of an old television set he had purchased from a repair shop.[26]
Career and research Berners-Lee, 2005After graduation, Berners-Lee worked as an engineer at the telecommunications company Plessey in Poole, Dorset.[24] In 1978, he joined D. G. Nash in Ferndown, Dorset, where he helped create typesetting software for printers.[24]
Berners-Lee worked as an independent contractor at CERN from June to December 1980. While in Geneva, he proposed a project based on the concept of hypertext, to facilitate sharing and updating information among researchers.[27] To demonstrate it, he built a prototype system named ENQUIRE.[28]
After leing CERN in late 1980, he went to work at John Poole's Image Computer Systems, Ltd, in Bournemouth, Dorset.[29] He ran the company's technical side for three years.[30] The project he worked on was a "real-time remote procedure call" which ge him experience in computer networking.[29] In 1984, he returned to CERN as a fellow.[28]
In 1989, CERN was the largest Internet Node in Europe and Berners-Lee saw an opportunity to join hypertext with the Internet:
I just had to take the hypertext idea and connect it to the TCP and DNS ideas and—ta-da!—the World Wide Web.
— Tim Berners-Lee[31]
Creating the web was really an act of desperation, because the situation without it was very difficult when I was working at CERN later. Most of the technology involved in the web, like the hypertext, like the Internet, multifont text objects, had all been designed already. I just had to put them together. It was a step of generalising, going to a higher level of abstraction, thinking about all the documentation systems out there as being possibly part of a larger imaginary documentation system.
— Tim Berners-Lee[32]
This NeXT Computer was used by Berners-Lee at CERN and became the world's first web server.Berners-Lee wrote his proposal in March 1989 and redistributed it in 1990. It then was accepted by his manager, Mike Sendall, who called his proposals "vague, but exciting".[33] Robert Cailliau had independently proposed a project to develop a hypertext system at CERN, and joined Berners-Lee as a partner in his efforts to get the web off the ground.[28] They used similar ideas to those underlying the ENQUIRE system to create the World Wide Web, for which Berners-Lee designed and built the first web browser. His software also functioned as an editor (called WorldWideWeb, running on the NeXTSTEP operating system), and the first Web server, CERN httpd (Hypertext Transfer Protocol daemon).
Berners-Lee published the first website, which described the project itself, on 20 December 1990; it was ailable to the Internet from the CERN network. The site provided an explanation of what the World Wide Web was, and how people could use a browser and set up a web server and a website.[34][35][36][26] On 6 August 1991, Berners-Lee first posted, on Usenet, a public invitation for collaboration with the WorldWideWeb project.[37]
In a list of 80 cultural moments that shaped the world, chosen by a panel of 25 eminent scientists, academics, writers and world leaders in 2016, the invention of the World Wide Web was ranked number one, with the entry stating: "The fastest growing communications medium of all time, the Internet has changed the shape of modern life forever. We can connect with each other instantly, all over the world."[38]
In 1994, Berners-Lee founded the W3C at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It comprised various companies willing to create standards and recommendations to improve the quality of the Web. Berners-Lee made his idea ailable freely, with no patent and no royalties due. The World Wide Web Consortium decided that its standards should be based on royalty-free technology, so that anyone could easily adopt them.[39]
Berners-Lee participated in Curl Corp's attempt to develop and promote the Curl programming language.[40]
In 2001, Berners-Lee became a patron of the East Dorset Heritage Trust, hing previously lived in Colehill in Wimborne, East Dorset.[41] In 2004, he accepted a chair in computer science at the School of Electronics and Computer Science, University of Southampton, Hampshire, to work on the Semantic Web.[42][43]
In a Times article in October 2009, Berners-Lee admitted that the initial pair of slashes ("//") in a web address were "unnecessary". He told the newspaper that he easily could he designed web addresses without the slashes. "There you go, it seemed like a good idea at the time," he said in his lighthearted apology.[44]
Since 2021, Berners-Lee has been an advisory board member of Proton Foundation.[45]
Policy work Tim Berners-Lee at the Home Office, London, on 11 March 2010By 2010, he created data.gov.uk alongside Nigel Shadbolt. Of the Ordnance Survey data in April 2010, Berners-Lee said: "The changes signal a wider cultural change in government based on an assumption that information should be in the public domain unless there is a good reason not to—not the other way around." He added: "Greater openness, accountability and transparency in Government will give people greater choice and make it easier for individuals to get more directly involved in issues that matter to them."[46]
In November 2009, Berners-Lee launched the World Wide Web Foundation (WWWF).[47]
Berners-Lee speaking at the launch of the World Wide Web FoundationBerners-Lee is one of the pioneer voices in four of net neutrality,[48] and has expressed the view that ISPs should supply "connectivity with no strings attached", neither controlling nor monitoring customers' browsing activity without their express consent.[49][50] He advocates the idea that net neutrality is a kind of human network right: "Threats to the Internet, such as companies or governments that interfere with or snoop on Internet traffic, compromise basic human network rights."[51] Berners-Lee participated in an open letter to the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC). He and 20 other Internet pioneers urged the FCC to cancel a vote on 14 December 2017 to uphold net neutrality. The letter was addressed to Senator Roger Wicker, Senator Brian Schatz, Representative Marsha Blackburn and Representative Michael F. Doyle.[52]
Berners-Lee was honoured as the "Inventor of the World Wide Web" during the 2012 Summer Olympics opening ceremony, in which he appeared working with a vintage NeXT Computer.[53] He tweeted "This is for everyone"[54] which appeared in LED lights attached to the chairs of the audience.[53] In 2025, he released a book on the history of the Internet by the same name.[55]
Berners-Lee's tweet, "This is for everyone",[54] at the 2012 Summer Olympic Games in LondonBerners-Lee joined the board of advisors of start-up State.com, based in London.[56] As of May 2012, he is president of the Open Data Institute,[57] which he and Shadbolt co-founded in 2012.
The Alliance for Affordable Internet (A4AI) was launched in 2013, and Berners-Lee is leading the coalition of public and private organisations that includes Google, Facebook, Intel and Microsoft. The A4AI seeks to make Internet access more affordable so that access is broadened in the developing world where, in 2013, only 31% of people were online. Berners-Lee will work with those aiming to decrease Internet access prices so that they fall below the UN Broadband Commission's worldwide target of 5% of monthly income.[58]
Berners-Lee holds the founders chair in Computer Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he heads the Decentralized Information Group and is leading Solid, a joint project with the Qatar Computing Research Institute that aims to radically change the way Web applications work, resulting in true data ownership and greater privacy.[59] In 2016, he joined the Department of Computer Science at Oxford University as a professorial research fellow[60] and as a fellow of Christ Church, one of the Oxford colleges.[61]
Tim Berners-Lee at the Science Museum for the Web@30 event, March 2019From the mid-2010s, Berners-Lee initially remained neutral on the emerging Encrypted Media Extensions (EME) proposal with its controversial digital rights management (DRM) implications.[62] In March 2017 he felt he had to take a position, which was to support the EME proposal.[62] He reasoned EME's virtues whilst noting DRM was inevitable.[62] As W3C director, he approved the finalised specification in July 2017.[63][62] His stance was opposed by some, including Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), the anti-DRM campaign Defective by Design and the Free Software Foundation.[63] Concerns included being not supportive of the Internet's open philosophy against commercial interests and risks of users being forced to use a particular web browser to view specific DRM content.[62] The EFF raised a formal appeal. It did not succeed, and the EME specification became a formal W3C recommendation in September 2017.[64]
On 30 September 2018, Berners-Lee announced his open-source startup Inrupt to fuel a commercial ecosystem around the Solid project, which aims to give users more control over their personal data and let them choose where the data goes, who's allowed to see certain elements and which apps are allowed to see that data.[65][66]
In November 2019, at the Internet Governance Forum in Berlin, Berners-Lee and the WWWF launched Contract for the Web, a campaign initiative to persuade governments, companies and citizens to commit to nine principles to stop "misuse", with the warning that "if we don't act now – and act together – to prevent the web being misused by those who want to exploit, divide and undermine, we are at risk of squandering [its potential for good]".[67]
Awards and honours Main article: List of awards and honours received by Tim Berners-LeeHe wove the World Wide Web and created a mass medium for the 21st century. The World Wide Web is Berners-Lee's alone. He designed it. He loosed it on the world. And he more than anyone else has fought to keep it open, nonproprietary and free.
—Tim Berners-Lee's entry in Time magazine's list of the 100 Most Important People of the 20th century, March 1999.[23]Berners-Lee has received many awards and honours. He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in the 2004 New Year Honours "for services to the global development of the Internet", and was invested formally on 16 July 2004.[20][21]
On 13 June 2007, he was appointed to the Order of Merit (OM), an order restricted to 24 living members, plus any honorary members.[68] Bestowing membership of the Order of Merit is within the personal purview of the Sovereign and does not require recommendation by ministers or the Prime Minister.
He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2001.[69] He was also elected as a member into the American Philosophical Society in 2004[70] and the National Academy of Engineering in 2007.
He has been conferred honorary degrees from a number of universities around the world, including Manchester (his parents worked on the Manchester Mark 1 in the 1940s), Harvard and Yale.[71][72][73]
In 2012, Berners-Lee was among the British cultural icons selected by artist Sir Peter Blake to appear in a new version of his most famous artwork – the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album cover – to celebrate the British cultural figures of his life that he most admires to mark his 80th birthday.[74][75]
In 2013, he was awarded the inaugural Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering.[76] On 4 April 2017, he received the 2016 Association for Computing Machinery's Turing Award for his invention of the World Wide Web, the first web browser, and their fundamental protocols and algorithms.[22]
Personal lifeBerners-Lee has said "I like to keep work and personal life separate."[77]
Berners-Lee has married three times. Following final exams in Oxford, he married Jane Northcote (daughter of Cambridge biologist Don Northcote) in 1976. They moved together to Poole to work at Plessey, and then moved in 1980 to work at CERN together for a six-month contract. After their return to Britain, they decided to end their marriage.[78]
In 1990, Berners-Lee married Nancy Carlson, an American computer programmer. She was also working in Switzerland at the World Health Organization.[79] They had two children and divorced in 2011. In 2014, he married Rosemary Leith at the Chapel Royal, St. James's Palace in London.[80] Leith is a Canadian Internet and banking entrepreneur and a founding director of Berners-Lee's World Wide Web Foundation.[81] The couple also collaborate on venture capital to support artificial intelligence companies.[82]
Berners-Lee was raised as an Anglican, but he turned away from religion in his youth. After he became a parent, he became a Unitarian Universalist (UU).[83] When asked whether he believes in God, he said: "Not in the sense of most people. I'm atheist and Unitarian Universalist."[84]
The web's source code was auctioned by Sotheby's in London during 23–30 June 2021, as a non-fungible token (NFT) by Berners-Lee.[85][86][87] It sold for US$5,434,500.[88] The proceeds would reportedly be used to fund initiatives by Berners-Lee and Leith.[87][85]
In 2025, Berners-Lee published a memoir, This is For Everyone, with ghostwriter Stephen Witt.[89] It received mixed reviews.[90] Stephen Fry recorded the audiobook.[91]
In November 2025, Berners-Lee was the guest on BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs. His chosen luxury to take to the hypothetical island was a chromatic harmonica.[92]
ViewsBerners-Lee views Wikipedia as probably the best single example of what he wanted the World Wide Web to be. At the end of Chapter 7 of This is for Everyone, he writes:
Wikipedia has grown to contain millions of articles on every subject known to our species – an invaluable repository of human knowledge that I consider one of the modern wonders of the world. What made this system work was intercreativity – a group of people being creative. Wikipedia is probably the best single example of what I wanted the web to be.[93]
Books Berners-Lee, Tim; Fischetti, Mark (22 September 1999). Weing the Web: The Original Design and Ultimate Destiny of the World Wide Web by Its Inventor (First hardcover ed.). San Francisco: HarperBusiness. ISBN 0062515861. OCLC 41238513. Berners-Lee, Tim (9 September 2025). This Is for Everyone: The Unfinished Story of the World Wide Web (First hardcover ed.). New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. ISBN 978-0374612467. OCLC 1478325766. References ^ a b c Anon (2015). "Berners-Lee, Sir Timothy (John)". Who's Who (online Oxford University Press ed.). A & C Black. doi:10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.U12699. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.) ^ "Tim Berners-Lee". Department of Computer Science. Retrieved 27 May 2020. ^ "Sir Tim Berners-Lee joins Oxford's Department of Computer Science". ox.ac.uk. University of Oxford. 27 October 2016. Retrieved 18 September 2018. ^ "Tim Berners-Lee | MIT CSAIL". www.csail.mit.edu. Retrieved 19 September 2021. ^ Foundation, Web (12 March 2019). "30 years on, what's next #ForTheWeb?". World Wide Web Foundation. ^ "info.cern.ch – Tim Berners-Lee's proposal". cern.ch. Info.cern.ch. Retrieved 21 December 2011. ^ Tim Berners Lee's own reference. The exact date is unknown. ^ Berners-Lee, Tim; Mark Fischetti (1999). Weing 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. ^ 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. ^ 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. ^ 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. ^ "Timothy Berners-Lee Elected to National Academy of Sciences". Dr. Dobb's Journal. Retrieved 9 June 2009. ^ "72 New Members Chosen By Academy" (Press release). United States National Academy of Sciences. 28 April 2009. Retrieved 17 January 2011. ^ Schorow, Stephanie (5 January 2007). "Draper Prize". mit.edu. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Retrieved 25 May 2008. ^ "People". The Web Science Research Initiative. Archived from the original on 28 June 2008. Retrieved 17 January 2011. ^ "MIT Center for Collective Intelligence (homepage)". mit.edu. Cci.mit.edu. Retrieved 15 August 2010. ^ "MIT Center for Collective Intelligence (people)". Cci.mit.edu. Archived from the original on 11 June 2010. Retrieved 15 August 2010. ^ Bratt, Steve (29 September 2011). "Sir Tim Berners-Lee Named to the Ford Foundation Board". World Wide Foundation. Retrieved 22 August 2017. ^ 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. ^ a b c "Web's inventor gets a knighthood". BBC News. 31 December 2003. Retrieved 10 November 2015. ^ a b "Creator of the web turns knight". BBC News. 16 July 2004. Retrieved 10 November 2015. ^ a b "A. M. Turing Award". Association for Computing Machinery. 2016. Retrieved 4 April 2017. ^ a b Quittner, Joshua (29 March 1999). "Tim Berners Lee—Time 100 People of the Century". Time Magazine. Archived from the original on 16 October 2007. ^ a b c d "Berners-Lee Longer Biography". w3.org. World Wide Web Consortium. Retrieved 18 January 2011. ^ Edgecliffe-Johnson, Andrew (7 September 2012). "Lunch with the FT: Tim Berners-Lee". Financial Times. Archived from the original on 10 December 2022. Retrieved 11 June 2017. ^ a b "He caught us all in the Web!". The Hindu. 1 September 2018. ISSN 0971-751X. Retrieved 2 September 2018. ^ "Berners-Lee's original proposal to CERN". w3.org. World Wide Web Consortium. March 1989. Retrieved 25 May 2008. ^ a b c Stewart, Bill. "Tim Berners-Lee, Robert Cailliau, and the World Wide Web". Retrieved 22 July 2010. ^ a b Berners-Lee, Tim. "Frequently asked questions". World Wide Web Consortium. Retrieved 22 July 2010. ^ Grossman, Wendy (15 July 1996). "All you never knew about the Net ...". The Independent. ^ Berners-Lee, Tim. "Answers for Young People". World Wide Web Consortium. Retrieved 25 May 2008. ^ "Visionary of the Internet". www.achievement.org. American Academy of Achievement. 22 June 2007. ^ "Ten Years Public Domain for the Original Web Software". CERN. Archived from the original on 16 November 2010. Retrieved 21 July 2010. ^ "Welcome to info.cern.ch, the website of the world's first-ever web server". CERN. Retrieved 25 May 2008. ^ "World Wide Web—Archive of world's first website". World Wide Web Consortium. Retrieved 25 May 2008. ^ "World Wide Web—First mentioned on USENET". 6 August 1991. Archived from the original on 12 May 2008. Retrieved 25 May 2008. ^ Van der Hiel, Amy (4 August 2016). "25 Years ago the world changed forever". W3C. Retrieved 5 August 2021. ^ "80 moments that shaped the world". British Council. Archived from the original on 30 June 2016. Retrieved 13 May 2016. ^ "Patent Policy—5 February 2004". World Wide Web Consortium. 5 February 2004. Retrieved 25 May 2008. ^ "Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee wants 'personal empowerment' for users, through his data startup". The Boston Globe. 29 December 2020. ^ Klooster, John W., (2009), Icons of Invention: the makers of the modern world from Gutenberg to Gates, ABC-CLIO, p. 611. ^ Berners-Lee, T.; Hendler, J.; Lassila, O. (2001). "The Semantic Web". Scientific American. 2841 (5): 34. Bibcode:2001SciAm.284e..34B. doi:10.1038/scientificamerican0501-34. ^ "Tim Berners-Lee, World Wide Web inventor, to join ECS". World Wide Web Consortium. 2 December 2004. Retrieved 25 May 2008. ^ "Berners-Lee 'sorry' for slashes". BBC. 14 October 2009. Retrieved 14 October 2009. ^ Yen, Andy (8 September 2021). "Sir Tim Berners-Lee joins Proton's advisory board". Proton. ^ "Ordnance Survey offers free data access". BBC News. 1 April 2010. Retrieved 3 April 2009. ^ FAQ—World Wide Web Foundation. Retrieved 18 January 2011. ^ Ghosh, Pallab (15 September 2008). "Web creator rejects net tracking". BBC. Retrieved 15 September 2008. Warning sounded on web's future. ^ Cellan-Jones, Rory (March 2008). "Web creator rejects net tracking". BBC. Retrieved 25 May 2008. Sir Tim rejects net tracking like Phorm. ^ Adams, Stephen (March 2008). "Web inventor's warning on spy software". The Daily Telegraph. London. Archived from the original on 22 May 2008. Retrieved 25 May 2008. Sir Tim rejects net tracking like Phorm. ^ Berners, Tim (December 2010). "Long Live the Web: A Call for Continued Open Standards and Neutrality". Scientific American. Retrieved 21 December 2011. ^ "Vint Cerf, Tim Berners-Lee, and 19 other technologists pen letter asking FCC to se net neutrality". VB News. Retrieved 14 December 2017 ^ a b Friar, Karen (28 July 2012). "Sir Tim Berners-Lee stars in Olympics opening ceremony". ZDNet. Retrieved 28 July 2012. ^ a b Berners-Lee, Tim [@timberners_lee] (28 July 2012). "This is for everyone #london2012 #oneweb #openingceremony @webfoundation @w3c" (Tweet). Retrieved 26 July 2025 – via Twitter. ^ Dwyer, Colin (9 September 2025). "New books out today: A Dan Brown thriller, John Prine bio, and World Wide Web memoir". NPR. Retrieved 9 September 2025. ^ "State.com/about/people". Archived from the original on 3 March 2016. Retrieved 9 September 2013. ^ Computing, Government (23 May 2012). "Government commits £10m to Open Data Institute". The Guardian. ^ Gibbs, Samuel (7 October 2013). "Sir Tim Berners-Lee and Google lead coalition for cheaper internet". The Guardian. Retrieved 8 October 2013. ^ Weinberger, Did, "How the father of the World Wide Web plans to reclaim it from Facebook and Google". Digital Trends, 10 August 2016. Retrieved 31 October 2016. ^ "Sir Tim Berners-Lee joins Oxford's Department of Computer Science". UK: University of Oxford. 27 October 2016. ^ "Sir Tim Berners-Lee joins Oxford's Department of Computer Science and Christ Church". UK: Christ Church, Oxford. 27 October 2016. Archived from the original on 25 June 2022. Retrieved 14 November 2016. ^ a b c d e McCarthy, Kieren (6 March 2017). "Sir Tim Berners-Lee refuses to be King Canute, approves DRM as Web standard". The Register. Situation Publishing. Archived from the original on 5 October 2018. Retrieved 30 May 2019. ^ a b Cardoza, Christina (7 July 2017). "DRM concerns arise as W3C's Tim Berners-Lee approves the EME specification". SD Times. BZ Media LLC. Archived from the original on 30 May 2019. Retrieved 12 March 2019. ^ McCarthy, Kieren (18 September 2017). "DRM now a formal Web recommendation after protest vote fails". The Register. Situation Publishing. Archived from the original on 27 February 2019. Retrieved 30 May 2019. ^ Fingas, Jon (30 September 2018). "Tim Berners-Lee project gives you more control over web data". Engadget. Retrieved 30 September 2018. ^ "Exclusive: Tim Berners-Lee tells us his radical new plan to upend the World Wide Web=Fast Company". Retrieved 29 September 2018. ^ CNA Staff (25 November 2019). "Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee launches plan to stop Internet abuse". Archived from the original on 25 November 2019. Retrieved 25 November 2019. ^ "Web inventor gets Queen's honour". BBC. 13 June 2007. Retrieved 25 May 2008. ^ "Fellowship of the Royal Society 1660–2015". London: Royal Society. Archived from the original on 15 October 2015. ^ "APS Member History". search.amphilsoc.org. Retrieved 14 June 2021. ^ "Scientific pioneers honoured by The University of Manchester". manchester.ac.uk. 2 December 2008. Archived from the original on 22 October 2013. Retrieved 28 May 2016. ^ "Yale awards 12 honorary degrees at 2014 graduation". Yale News, 19 May 2014. Retrieved 28 May 2016. ^ "Harvard awards 9 honorary degrees", Harvard Gazette, 26 May 2011. Retrieved 28 May 2016. ^ Dies, Caroline (5 October 2016). "New faces on Sgt Pepper album cover for artist Peter Blake's 80th birthday". The Guardian. ^ "Sir Peter Blake's new Beatles' Sgt Pepper's album cover". BBC. 2 April 2012. Retrieved 9 November 2016. ^ "Sir Tim Berners-Lee Receives Inaugural Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering, 2013". Web foundation.org. 18 March 2013. ^ "Frequently asked questions by the Press – Tim BL". www.w3.org. Retrieved 10 September 2020. ^ Lee, Tim Berners (2025). This is For Everyone. Pan Macmillan. pp. 28, 40. (Function). Kindle Edition. ISBN 978-1035023684. ^ "Nancy Carlson Is Wed to Timothy Berners-Lee". The New York Times. 15 July 1990. Retrieved 22 June 2018. ^ "Ms Rosemary Leith and Sir Tim Berners-Lee are delighted to announce that they celebrated their marriage on 20 June 2014...." World Wide Web Foundation. ^ "Rosemary Leith". World Wide Web Foundation. 25 June 2013. Retrieved 23 June 2018. ^ "VC firm Glasswing names Jibo, John Hancock execs to advisory board". www.bizjournals.com. 8 May 2018. Retrieved 22 June 2018. ^ "Faces of the week". 26 September 2003 – via news.bbc.co.uk. ^ Döpfner, Mathias. "The inventor of the web Tim Berners-Lee on the future of the internet, 'fake news,' and why net neutrality is so important". Business Insider. Retrieved 24 December 2019. ^ a b "NFT representing Tim Berners-Lee's source code for the web to go on sale". theguardian.com. theguardian.com. 15 June 2021. Retrieved 15 June 2021. ^ "This Changed Everything: Source Code for WWW x Tim Berners-Lee, an NFT". sothebys.com. Retrieved 15 June 2021. ^ a b "The web's source code is being auctioned as an NFT by inventor Tim Berners-Lee". CNBC. 15 June 2021. Retrieved 15 June 2021. ^ Lawler, Richard (30 June 2021). "Sir Tim Berners-Lee's web source code NFT sells for $5.4 million". The Verge. VOX Media. Retrieved 30 June 2021. ^ Duerden, Nick (12 September 2025). "The inventor of the web remains convinced he made the world a better place". The i Paper. Retrieved 24 October 2025. ^ "Book Marks reviews of This Is for Everyone: The Unfinished Story of the World Wide Web by Tim Berners-Lee". Book Marks. Retrieved 24 October 2025. ^ Brown, Lauren (8 August 2025). "Stephen Fry to voice audiobook of Tim Berners-Lee's memoir". The Bookseller. Retrieved 24 October 2025. ^ "BBC Radio 4 - Desert Island Discs, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, Computer Scientist". BBC. Retrieved 16 November 2025. ^ Lee, Tim Berners (2025). This is For Everyone. Pan Macmillan. pp. 171. (Function). Kindle Edition. ISBN 978-1035023684. Further reading Brooker, Katrina (August 2018). "'I Was Devastated': Tim Berners-Lee, the Man Who Created the World Wide Web, Has Some Regrets". Vanity Fair. Cailliau, Robert; James Gillies (2000). How the Web Was Born: The Story of the World Wide Web. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-286207-3. Frauenfelder, Mark (October 2004). Technology Review interview (Archived 28 November 2011 at the Wayback Machine). Gaines, Ann (2001). Tim Berners-Lee and the Development of the World Wide Web. Unlocking the Secrets of Science. Mitchell Lane Publishers. ISBN 1-58415-096-3. Transcript of video interview of Berners-Lee on the read/write Web on BBC2's Newsnight. Porter, Scott (11 February 2009). "Man Who Invented the World Wide Web Gives it New Definition" (Archived 12 April 2011 at the Wayback Machine). Compute Magazine. Stewart, Melissa (2001). Tim Berners-Lee: Inventor of the World Wide Web. Ferguson's Career Biographies. Ferguson Publishing Company. ISBN 0-89434-367-X. Children's biography. External links Tim Berners-Lee at Wikipedia's sister projects Media from CommonsQuotations from WikiquoteTexts from Wikisource Tim Berners-Lee on the W3C site Tim Berners-Lee at TED Appearances on C-SPAN Preceded byFirst recipient Millennium Technology Prize winner 2004 (for the World Wide Web) Succeeded byShuji Nakamura vteTelecommunicationsHistory Beacon Broadcasting Cable protection system Cable TV Communications satellite Computer network Data compression audio DCT image video Digital media Internet video online video platform social media streaming Drums Edholm's law Electrical telegraph Fax Heliographs Hydraulic telegraph Information Age Information revolution Internet Mass media Mobile phone Smartphone Optical telecommunication Optical telegraphy Pager Photophone Prepaid mobile phone Radio Radiotelephone Satellite communications Semaphore Phryctoria Semiconductor device MOSFET transistor Smoke signals Telecommunications history Telautograph Telegraphy Teleprinter (teletype) Telephone The Telephone Cases Television digital streaming Undersea telegraph line Videotelephony Whistled language Wireless revolution Pioneers Nasir Ahmed Edwin Howard Armstrong Mohamed M. Atalla John Logie Baird Paul Baran John Bardeen Alexander Graham Bell Emile Berliner Tim Berners-Lee Francis Blake Jagadish Chandra Bose Charles Bourseul Walter Houser Brattain Vint Cerf Claude Chappe Yogen Dalal Donald Dies Daniel Dis Jr. Amos Dolbear Thomas Edison Philo Farnsworth Reginald Fessenden Lee de Forest Elisha Gray Oliver Heiside Robert Hooke Erna Schneider Hoover Harold Hopkins Gardiner Greene Hubbard Bob Kahn Dawon Kahng Charles K. Kao Narinder Singh Kapany Hedy Lamarr Roberto Landell Innocenzo Manzetti Guglielmo Marconi Robert Metcalfe Antonio Meucci Samuel Morse Jun-ichi Nishizawa Charles Grafton Page Radia Perlman Alexander Stepanovich Popov Tivadar Puskás Johann Philipp Reis Claude Shannon Almon Brown Strowger Henry Sutton Charles Sumner Tainter Nikola Tesla Camille Tissot Alfred Vail Thomas A. Watson Charles Wheatstone Vladimir K. Zworykin Internet pioneers Transmissionmedia Coaxial cable Fiber-optic communication optical fiber Free-space optical communication Molecular communication Radio wes wireless Transmission line telecommunication circuit Network topologyand switching Bandwidth Links Network switching circuit packet Nodes terminal Telephone exchange Multiplexing Space-division Frequency-division Time-division Polarization-division Orbital angular-momentum Code-division Concepts Communication protocol Computer network Data transmission Store and forward Telecommunications equipment Types of network Cellular network Ethernet ISDN LAN Mobile NGN Public Switched Telephone Radio Television Telex UUCP WAN Wireless network Notable networks ARPANET BITNET CYCLADES FidoNet Internet Internet2 JANET NPL network TANet Toasternet Usenet Locations Africa Americas North South Antarctica Asia Europe Oceania Global telecommunications regulation bodies Telecommunication portal Category Outline Commons vteCharles Stark Draper Prize recipients1980s Jack Kilby / Robert Noyce (1989) 1990s Frank Whittle / Hans von Ohain (1991) John Backus (1993) John R. Pierce / Harold A. Rosen (1995) Vladimir Haensel (1997) Charles K. Kao / Robert D. Maurer / John B. MacChesney (1999) 2000s Vinton Cerf / Bob Kahn / Leonard Kleinrock / Lawrence G. Roberts (2001) Robert Langer (2002) Ivan Getting / Bradford Parkinson (2003) Alan Kay / Butler Lampson / Robert Taylor / Charles P. Thacker (2004) Minoru S. Araki / Francis J. Madden / Edward A. Miller / James W. Plummer / Don H. Schoessler (2005) Willard Boyle / George E. Smith (2006) Tim Berners-Lee (2007) Rudolf E. Kálmán (2008) Robert H. Dennard (2009) 2010s Frances Arnold / Willem P. C. Stemmer (2011) George H. Heilmeier / Wolfgang Helfrich / Martin Schadt / T. Peter Brody (2012) Thomas Haug / Martin Cooper / Yoshihisa Okumura / Richard H. Frenkiel / Joel S. Engel (2013) John B. Goodenough / Yoshio Nishi / Rachid Yazami / Akira Yoshino (2014) Isamu Akasaki / George Craford / Russell Dupuis / Nick Holonyak / Shuji Nakamura (2015) Andrew Viterbi (2016) Bjarne Stroustrup (2018) 2020s Jean Fréchet / C. Grant Willson (2020) Steve Furber / John L. Hennessy / Did Patterson / Sophie Wilson (2022) vteJapan Prize recipients1980s John R. Pierce / Ephraim Katchalski-Katzir (1985) Did Turnbull / Willem J. Kolff (1986) Henry Beachell / Gurdev Khush / Theodore Maiman (1987) Georges Vendryes / Donald Henderson / Isao Arita / Frank Fenner / Luc Montagnier / Robert Gallo (1988) Frank Sherwood Rowland / Elias James Corey (1989) 1990s Marvin Minsky / W. Jason Morgan / Dan McKenzie / Xier Le Pichon (1990) Jacques-Louis Lions / John J. Wild (1991) Gerhard Ertl / Ernest John Christopher Polge (1992) Frank Press / Kary B. Mullis (1993) William Hayward Pickering / Arvid Carlsson (1994) Nick Holonyak Jr. / Edward F. Knipling (1995) Charles K. Kao / Masao Ito (1996) Takashi Sugimura / Bruce Ames / Joseph Engelberger / Hiroyuki Yoshikawa (1997) Leo Esaki / Jozef Schell / Marc Van Montagu (1998) W. Wesley Peterson / Jack L. Strominger / Don Craig Wiley (1999) 2000s Ian McHarg / Kimishige Ishizaka (2000) John B. Goodenough / Timothy R. Parsons (2001) Tim Berners-Lee / Anne McLaren / Andrzej Tarkowski (2002) Benoit Mandelbrot / James A. Yorke / Seiji Ogawa (2003) Kenichi Honda / Akira Fujishima / Keith J. Sainsbury / John H. Lawton (2004) Makoto Nagao / Masatoshi Takeichi / Erkki Ruoslahti (2005) John Houghton / Akira Endo (2006) Albert Fert / Peter Grünberg / Peter Shaw Ashton (2007) Vint Cerf / Robert E. Kahn / Victor A. McKusick (2008) Dennis Meadows / Did E. Kuhl (2009) 2010s Shun-ichi Iwasaki / Peter Vitousek (2010) Ken Thompson / Dennis Ritchie / Tadamitsu Kishimoto / Toshio Hirano (2011) Janet Rowley / Brian Druker / Nicholas Lydon / Masato Sagawa (2012) C. Grant Willson / Jean Fréchet / John Frederick Grassle (2013) Yasuharu Suematsu / C. Did Allis (2014) Yutaka Takahasi / Theodore Friedmann / Alain Fischer (2015) Hideo Hosono / Steven D. Tanksley (2016) Emmanuelle Charpentier / Jennifer Doudna / Adi Shamir (2017) Akira Yoshino / Max Dale Cooper / Jacques Miller (2018) Yoshio Okamoto / Rattan Lal (2019) 2020s Robert G. Gallager / Svante Pääbo (2020) Martin A. Green / Bert Vogelstein / Robert A. Weinberg (2021) Katalin Karikó / Drew Weissman / Christopher Field (2022) Masataka Nakazawa / Kazuo Hagimoto / Gero Miesenböck / Karl Deisseroth (2023) Brian Hoskins / John Michael Wallace / Ronald M. Evans (2024) vteInternet Hall of FamePioneers2012 Paul Baran Vint Cerf Danny Cohen Steve Crocker Donald Dies Elizabeth J. Feinler Charles Herzfeld Robert Kahn Peter T. Kirstein Leonard Kleinrock John Klensin Jon Postel Louis Pouzin Lawrence Roberts 2013 Did Clark Did Farber Howard Frank Kanchana Kanchanasut J. C. R. Licklider Bob Metcalfe Jun Murai Kees Neggers Nii Quaynor Glenn Ricart Robert Taylor Stephen Wolff Werner Zorn 2014 Douglas Engelbart Susan Estrada Frank Heart Dennis Jennings Rolf Nordhagen Radia Perlman Global connectors2012 Randy Bush Kilnam Chon Al Gore Nancy Hafkin Geoff Huston Brewster Kahle Daniel Karrenberg Toru Takahashi Tan Tin Wee 2013 Karen Banks Gihan Dias Anriette Esterhuysen Steve Goldstein Teus Hagen Ida Holz Qiheng Hu Haruhisa Ishida Barry Leiner George Sadowsky 2014 Dai Dies Demi Getschko Masaki Hirabaru Erik Huizer Steve Huter Abhaya Induruwa Dorcas Muthoni Mahabir Pun Srinivasan Ramani Michael Roberts Ben Segal Douglas Van Houweling 2017 Nabil Bukhalid Ira Fuchs Shigeki Goto Mike Jensen Ermanno Pietrosemoli Tadao Takahashi Florencio Utreras Wu Jianping Innovators2012 Mitchell Baker Tim Berners-Lee Robert Cailliau Van Jacobson Lawrence Landweber Paul Mockapetris Craig Newmark Ray Tomlinson Linus Torvalds Phil Zimmermann 2013 Marc Andreessen John Perry Barlow François Flückiger Stephen Kent Anne-Marie Eklund Löwinder Henning Schulzrinne Richard Stallman Aaron Swartz Jimmy Wales 2014 Eric Allman Eric Bina Karlheinz Brandenburg John Cioffi Hualin Qian Paul Vixie 2017 Jaap Akkerhuis Yvonne Marie Andres Alan Emtage Ed Krol Tracy LaQuey Parker Craig Partridge Inductees since 20192019 Adiel Akplogan Kimberly Claffy Douglas Comer Elise Gerich Larry Irving Dan Lynch Jean Armour Polly José Soriano Michael Stanton Klaas Wierenga Suguru Yamaguchi [ja] 2021 Carlos Afonso Rob Blokzijl Hans-Werner Braun [de] Frode Greisen Jan Gruntorad Saul Hahn Kim Hubbard Rafael Ibarra Xing Li Yngvar Lundh Dan Kaminsky DaeYoung Kim Kenneth Klingenstein Alejandro Pisanty Yakov Rekhter Philip Smith Pål Spilling Liane Tarouco [pt] Virginia Trers George Varghese Lixia Zhang 2023 Abhay Bhushan Laura Breeden Ivan Moura Campos Steve Cisler Peter Eckersley Hartmut Richard Glaser Simon S. Lam William Schrader Guy de Téramond vteFellows of the Royal Society elected in 2001Fellows Did Attwell Did Baulcombe John Beddington Tim Berners-Lee Robert J. Birgeneau J. Richard Bond Hugh Bostock Keith Burnett Paul Callaghan Graham Collingridge James F. Crow Richard Dawkins Roger Ekins Henry Elderfield Anthony G. Evans Brian Eyre Peter Gluckman Charles Godfray Brigid Hogan John Hunt Frances Kirwan Shrinivas Kulkarni Andrew Leslie Michael Levitt Robin Lovell-Badge Paul Madden Mike Paterson Bruce Ponder Geoffrey Raisman Allan Sandage Dale Sanders Did Schindler George M. Sheldrick Sheila Sherlock Thomas Simpson Adrian Smith Mandyam Veerambudi Srinivasan Ian Stewart Roger Tanner Marc Tessier-Ligne Nicholas Tonks W. G. Unruh Bryan Webber Alex Wilkie Honorary Patrick Moore Foreign Alexei Abrikosov Alan Fowler Clara Franzini-Armstrong Ahmed Zewail vteA. M. Turing Award laureates Alan Perlis (1966) Maurice Wilkes (1967) Richard Hamming (1968) Marvin Minsky (1969) James H. Wilkinson (1970) John McCarthy (1971) Edsger W. Dijkstra (1972) Charles Bachman (1973) Donald Knuth (1974) Allen Newell / Herbert A. Simon (1975) Michael O. Rabin / Dana Scott (1976) John Backus (1977) Robert W. Floyd (1978) Kenneth E. Iverson (1979) Tony Hoare (1980) Edgar F. Codd (1981) Stephen Cook (1982) Dennis Ritchie / Ken Thompson (1983) Niklaus Wirth (1984) Richard Karp (1985) John Hopcroft / Robert Tarjan (1986) John Cocke (1987) Ivan Sutherland (1988) William Kahan (1989) Fernando J. Corbató (1990) Robin Milner (1991) Butler Lampson (1992) Juris Hartmanis / Richard E. Stearns (1993) Edward Feigenbaum / Raj Reddy (1994) Manuel Blum (1995) Amir Pnueli (1996) Douglas Engelbart (1997) Jim Gray (1998) Fred Brooks (1999) Andrew Yao (2000) Ole-Johan Dahl / Kristen Nygaard (2001) Leonard Adleman / Ron Rivest / Adi Shamir (2002) Alan Kay (2003) Vint Cerf / Bob Kahn (2004) Peter Naur (2005) Frances Allen (2006) Edmund M. Clarke / E. Allen Emerson / Joseph Sifakis (2007) Barbara Liskov (2008) Charles P. Thacker (2009) Leslie Valiant (2010) Judea Pearl (2011) Shafi Goldwasser / Silvio Micali (2012) Leslie Lamport (2013) Michael Stonebraker (2014) Whitfield Diffie / Martin Hellman (2015) Tim Berners-Lee (2016) John L. Hennessy / Did Patterson (2017) Yoshua Bengio / Geoffrey Hinton / Yann LeCun (2018) Ed Catmull / Pat Hanrahan (2019) Alfred Aho / Jeffrey Ullman (2020) Jack Dongarra (2021) Robert Metcalfe (2022) Avi Wigderson (2023) Andrew Barto / Richard S. Sutton (2024) vteLaureates of the Prince or Princess of Asturias Award for Technical and Scientific ResearchPrince of Asturias Award for Technical and Scientific Research 1981: Alberto Sols 1982: Manuel Ballester 1983: Luis Antonio Santaló Sors 1984: Antonio García-Bellido 1985: Did Vázquez Martínez and Emilio Rosenblueth 1986: Antonio González González 1987: Jacinto Convit and Pablo Rudomín 1988: Manuel Cardona and Marcos Moshinsky 1989: Guido Münch 1990: Santiago Grisolía and Salvador Moncada 1991: Francisco Bolívar Zapata 1992: Federico García Moliner 1993: Amable Liñán 1994: Manuel Patarroyo 1995: Manuel Losada Villasante and Instituto Nacional de Biodiversidad of Costa Rica 1996: Valentín Fuster 1997: Atapuerca research team 1998: Emilio Méndez Pérez and Pedro Miguel Echenique Landiríbar 1999: Ricardo Miledi and Enrique Moreno González 2000: Robert Gallo and Luc Montagnier 2001: Craig Venter, John Sulston, Francis Collins, Hamilton Smith, and Jean Weissenbach 2002: Lawrence Roberts, Robert E. Kahn, Vinton Cerf, and Tim Berners-Lee 2003: Jane Goodall 2004: Judah Folkman, Tony Hunter, Joan Massagué, Bert Vogelstein, and Robert Weinberg 2005: Antonio Damasio 2006: Juan Ignacio Cirac 2007: Peter Lawrence and Ginés Morata 2008: Sumio Iijima, Shuji Nakamura, Robert Langer, George M. Whitesides, and Tobin Marks 2009: Martin Cooper and Raymond Tomlinson 2010: Did Julius, Baruch Minke, and Linda Watkins 2011: Joseph Altman, Arturo Álvarez-Buylla, and Giacomo Rizzolatti 2012: Gregory Winter and Richard A. Lerner 2013: Peter Higgs, François Englert, and European Organization for Nuclear Research CERN 2014: Avelino Corma Canós, Mark E. Dis, and Galen D. Stucky Princess of Asturias Award for Technical and Scientific Research 2015: Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna 2016: Hugh Herr 2017: Rainer Weiss, Kip S. Thorne, Barry C. Barish, and the LIGO Scientific Collaboration 2018: Svante Pääbo 2019: Joanne Chory and Sandra Myrna Díaz 2020: Yves Meyer, Ingrid Daubechies, Terence Tao, and Emmanuel Candès 2021: Katalin Karikó, Drew Weissman, Philip Felgner, Uğur Şahin, Özlem Türeci, Derrick Rossi, and Sarah Gilbert 2022: Geoffrey Hinton, Yann LeCun, Yoshua Bengio, and Demis Hassabis 2023: Jeffrey I. Gordon, Everett Peter Greenberg, and Bonnie Bassler 2024: Daniel J. Drucker, Jeffrey M. Friedman, Joel F. Habener, Jens Juul Holst, and Svetlana Mojsov 2025: Mary-Claire King Portals: Biography Internet Technology Systems science University of Oxford Free and open-source software Authority control databases InternationalISNIVIAFGNDFASTWorldCatNationalUnited StatesFranceBnF dataJapanItalyCzech RepublicSpainNetherlandsNorwayLatviaChileKoreaSwedenPolandIsraelCataloniaAcademicsCiNiiORCIDAssociation for Computing MachineryScopuszbMATHDBLPMathSciNetPeopleDDBOtherIdRefOpen LibrarySNACELMCIPYale LUX