ittle has changed our relationship with the world as  mmmmmmmmmmmm ittle has changed the world as much as the World Wide Web has. During the year 2001, an unbelievable 250 million people were using the Internet, it was unheard of, and we owe it all to Tim Berners-Lee—the inventor of the World Wide Web.

      The Internet is a worldwide network of computers that can communicate with each other. It was created in the 1970s, but was only available to computer experts such as scientists or military personnel. Tim Berners-Lee wanted to create an accessible system that can link information across the Internet ­ he called it the World Wide Web. In 1991, with many thanks to Tim, the Web was launched and the Internet’s popularity soared.With that in mind, the following will answer one question, what type of person would invent the Web?

Tim was born on June 8th, 1955 in London, England and attended Emanuel School in Wandsworth as the son of Conway Berners-Lee and Mary Lee Woods. Both of his parents were mathematicians and were employed together on the team that built the Manchester Mark I, one of the earliest computers. Going back to the 1960s in London, you might find Tim constructing fantasized computers out of cardboard boxes or playing mathematical games with his parents at their kitchen table. Always being fascinated by the world that surrounded him, Tim was naturally inquisitive and had a curiosity that one day lead him to a grimy Victorian-era encyclopedia, with the mysterious words “Enquire Within Upon Everything”, engraved as the title—a title that will stay with him for years to come.

Tim as a Teenager  

An alumnus of Queen's College, Oxford University, Tim had two primary interests: computers and how the mind organizes information while almost randomly connecting so many diverse facts. Like how a song or a scent can mentally bring someone to another place or time. While at Oxford, he was caught hacking with a friend and was later banned from using the university computer. Tim was so fascinated by computers that, before graduating from the University of Oxford, he built his very first one from a kit using an old television, a soldering iron, TTL gates, and an early M6800 microprocessor, a microchip.

Tim Berners-Lee graduated from the Queen's College  at Oxford University, England in 1976 with a degree in physics and 1rst Class Honours in Physics. He spent two years with Plessey Telecommunications Ltd (Poole, Dorset, UK) a major UK Telecom equipment manufacturer, working on distributed transaction systems, message relays, and bar code technology. In 1978 Tim left Plessey to join D.G Nash Ltd (Ferndown, Dorset, UK), where he wrote, among other things, a typesetting software for intelligent printers and a multitasking operating system.

 In 1980, Tim became an independent consultant software engineer at CERN. His job required a lot of research and communication with people from all over the world. Growing frustrated with how poorly his mind could remember important documents and reports, Tim wrote a software program that was capable of storing information and linking documents electronically using a series of links (hypertext) that connected them like an index does in a book, but the information was accessible on only one computer. He named the program “Enquire” after the book he loved as a child. This program formed the theoretical basis for the development of the World Wide Web. From 1981 until 1984, Tim worked at John Poole's Image Computer Systems Ltd, with technical design responsibility.

     In 1984, Tim Berners-Lee took up a fellowship at CERN, the European Particle Physics Laboratory, also the world’s largest one, in Geneva, Switzerland to work on distributed real-time systems for scientific data acquisition and system control. Among other things, he worked on FASTBUS system software and designed a heterogeneous remote procedure call system.

   The NeXTcube was used by Tim at CERN and became the first web server.

     In 1989, Tim Berners-Lee proposed a global hypertext project where, based on the earlier "Enquire" work, documents could be linked via hypertext to the Internet, allowing people worldwide to easily share information; he called it the “World Wide Web.” In his words, "I just had to take the hypertext idea and connect it to the TCP and DNS ideas and — ta-da! — the World Wide Web".  Although many were skeptical or thought of the idea as impossible, Tim worked with a few supportive colleagues, and developed the four critical foundations of the Web. The language for coding documents (HTML); the hypertext system for linking documents (HTTP); the system for locating documents on the Web (URL); and the first graphical user interface (Internet browser). The Web was launched on the Internet in the summer of 1991and its popularity soared .      

     The first Web site built was at http://info.cern.ch/ and was first put online on August 6, 1991. It provided an explanation about the World Wide Web, how one could own a browser, and how to set up a Web server. It was also the world's first Web directory, since Berners-Lee maintained a list of other Web sites apart from his own.

      1995- Kilby Foundation's "Young Innovator of the Year" Award, an honorary Prix Ars Electronica

      1997- IEEE Koji Kobayashi Computers and Communications Award,  Duddell Medal of the Institute of Physics, the Interactive Services Association's Distinguished Service Award,  the MCI Computerworld/Smithsonian Award for Leadership in Innovation, The International Communication Institute's Columbus Prize, OBE

      1998- Charles Babbage award, the Mountbatten Medal of the National Electronics Council, the Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran Prize from the Foundation for Science and Technology, PC Magazine Lifetime Achievement Award in Technical Excellence, MacArthur Fellowship and The Eduard Rhein technology award

      1999-100 greatest minds of the century from Time magazine, World Technology Award for Communication Technology, Honorary Fellowship to the Society for Technical Communications.

      2000-Paul Evan Peters Award of ARL, Educause and CNI, the Electronic Freedom Foundation's pioneer award, the George R Stibitz Computer Pioneer award at the American Computer Museum, the Special Award for Outstanding Contribution of the World Television Forum.

      2001-Sir Frank Whittle Medal from the Royal Academy of Engineering

      2002-recipient of the Japan Prize from the Science and Technology Foundation of Japan,shared the Prince of Asturias Foundation Prize for Scientific and Technical Research with Larry Roberts, Rob Kahn and Vint Cerf; became Fellow of the Guglielmo Marconi Foundation, Albert Medal of the Royal Society for the encouragement of Art, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA)

      2004-listed in the new year's honours list for a knighthood (KBE) for services to the global development of the Internet, knighted by H.M. the Queen, first Millennium Technology Prize, Special Award of the American Society for Information Science and Technology

      2005-Common Wealth Award for Distinguished Service for Mass Communications, Die Quadriga Award, Institute of Physics President's Medal, Financial Times Lifetime Achievement Award