Full name: Sir Timothy (Tim) John Berners-Lee Born: 8th June 1955 Invention/Achievement: The World Wide Web Date of introduction/Achievment: Proposed March 1989, implemented 6th August 1991 Died:

While Sir Tim Berners-Lee is a comparatively wealthy man, he is a pauper compared to those who have made multi-billion dollar fortunes from his invention, "The World Wide Web".  

Tim Berners-Lee was the inventor of this now staple necessity which enabled anyone with a computer, an internet connection and a Web browser to access, navigate between and interact with Web pages containing text, images and other multimedia events on the Internet, he decided that the use of Web would be freely available to all, with no patents or royalty payments from his invention.  

Berners-Lee was born in London in 1955 to parents who worked in computer science, where after graduating with a first class degree in physics from Oxford University he went on to work for CERN (the European Organisation for Nuclear Research).  In 1989 CERN was seen as a major wide-area networking hub and Berners-Lee proposed using a Hypertext communication system to enable the easier sharing of massive amounts of research data held by CERN.  It was, said Berners-Lee, "…an act of desperation because the situation with it was very difficult." It was after writing his CERN proposal that Berners-Lee realised that it could be implemented on a world-wide open access basis.   

The first Website was at CERN and was put online on 6^th August 1991.  In 1994 Berners-Lee founded the World Wide Web Consortium, made up of companies who were agreed to improve the quality and reliability of the Web through creation and implementation of standards.

 Since then the World Wide Web has become an integral part of society, transforming the way we share information, communicate, socialise and do business.  Its growth has been astonishing, from 16 million (0.4% of world population) in 1995 to over 3 billion (42.3%) in mid-2014.

There are over one billion Websites (though not all are active) and users can access an estimated one trillion pages.  Information, once the preserve of those with access to libraries of reference book, can now be gathered at the touch of a button.  

In 2004 Tim Berners-Lee was knighted by the Queen for "services to the global development of the Internet" and now remains highly active in promoting universal access to the Web and "Net Neutrality" where he is opposed to government or corporate control and monitoring of users' browsing activities.