Tim Berners-Lee is a British computer scientist, software engineer, and professor, widely recognized as the inventor of the World Wide Web. He is universally regarded as the “Father of the Web” for creating the fundamental technologies that made the modern internet accessible to everyone.

Tim Berners-Lee was born on June 8, 1955, in London, England. His parents were both mathematicians and were part of the team that worked on one of the first computers, the Manchester Mark I. He studied physics at Oxford University. During his university years, after being banned from using the university computers due to hacking activities, he built his own computer using an old television set. He graduated from Oxford University in 1976.

After graduation, Tim Berners-Lee began working as a software engineering consultant at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva. In 1980, while working there, he developed a program called “Enquire,” designed to help researchers remember and manage relationships between people, projects, and information. He described this system as a “memory substitute,” where interconnected data could be stored and retrieved easily.

After leaving CERN, Tim Berners-Lee returned in 1984 in a more advanced role. His main ambition was to create a global information-sharing system that anyone could access. He envisioned a system where documents stored on computers could be linked together and shared worldwide. To achieve this, he combined two key technologies: hypertext and the internet. Hypertext allowed non-linear navigation between documents, while the internet enabled these documents to be transmitted between computers.

Later, while working at CERN in Geneva, he developed advanced software systems inspired by the way the human brain processes and stores information, capable of performing multiple tasks simultaneously and retaining data.

In 1989, while working as an independent contractor at CERN, Tim Berners-Lee proposed a hypertext-based system for sharing information. When he did not receive immediate approval, he continued developing the idea independently. In 1990, he wrote the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), enabling communication between web servers and browsers. He also formalized the concept of document addresses, known as URI (Universal Resource Identifier), which later evolved into URLs (Uniform Resource Locators).

That same period, Tim Berners-Lee developed the HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) programming language and established the World Wide Web (WWW), a system that made sharing information over the internet simple and universal. He is also credited with creating the first web browser in 1990.

Toward the end of 1990, he developed the client program called WorldWideWeb and launched the first web server, known as “info.cern.ch.” This milestone allowed web pages to be published and accessed by others across the world, fulfilling his vision of a global information space.

In 1994, Tim Berners-Lee founded the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), an open international organization responsible for developing web standards. He continues to serve as the director of the W3C. He is also a senior researcher at MIT and a professor of computer science at the University of Southampton.

In 1999, Tim Berners-Lee was named one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential minds and has received numerous awards and honors. Rather than commercializing his invention, he ensured that the World Wide Web would remain free and open to everyone. For his contributions to humanity and global culture, he was knighted in 2004 by Queen Elizabeth II and awarded the title of “Sir.”

Tim Berners-Lee married his first wife, Jane, whom he met at Oxford University. In 2014, he married Rosemary Leith.

Source: Biyografiler.com