Tim Berners-Lee

For three years Tim worked at John Poole's Image Computer Systems, with technical design responsibility.

Work here included real time control firmware, graphics and communications software, and a generic macro language. He then worked on distributed real-time systems for scientific data acquisition and system control at CERN. He worked on FASTBUS system software and designed a heterogeneous remote procedure call system.

In 1989, Tim proposed a global hypertext project, to be known as the World Wide Web. Based on his Enquire work, it was designed to allow people to work together by combining their knowledge in a web of hypertext documents. He wrote the first World Wide Web server, "httpd", and the first client, "WorldWideWeb" a what-you-see-is-what-you-get hypertext browser/editor which ran in the NeXTStep environment. This work was started in 1990, and the program "WorldWideWeb" was made available on the Internet at large a year later.

Tim continued working on the design of the Web, coordinating feedback from users across the Internet. His initial specifications of URIs, HTTP and HTML were refined as the Web technology spread.

In 1994, Tim founded the World Wide Web Consortium at the Laboratory for Computer Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Since then he has served as its Director, coordinating Web development worldwide, with teams at MIT, at ERCIM, and at Keio University, Japan. The Consortium takes as its goal to lead the Web to its full potential, ensuring its stability through rapid evolution and revolutionary transformations of its usage.

In 1999, he became the first holder of the 3Com Founders chair at LCS which merged with the Artificial Intelligence Lab to become the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. He is a Senior Research Scientist and heads the Decentralized Information Group. In December 2004 he became a Chair in the Computer Science Department at the University of Southampton and he is co-Director of the Web Science Research Initiatiative.

Tim is the author of ‘Weaving the Web’, on the past, present and future of the Web.

Speaking Topics

Tim is the MIT professor credited with inventing the World Wide Web. In 2007, he was ranked Joint First alongside Albert Hofmann in The Telegraph's list of 100 greatest living geniuses. His public speaking engagements cover the following topics:

• Business
• Social Media
• Technology

For further information or to book Tim Berners Lee, call us at Speakers Corner on +44 (0) 20 8365 3200 or email info@speakerscorner.co.uk