(uptempo music)
- [Narrator] Sir Tim Berners-Lee says he did not have
a Eureka moment in 1989.
The invention of the web came after years of learning
from his experience on various projects.
He recognized the frustration and complications of trying
to share information from different computer systems,
and wanted to solve the dilemma.
Finally, while working at CERN in Geneva, he did.
- When I was at CERN I had all those pieces
sort of in my brain from other projects.
Couldn't we just make one, can't we just imagine a grand,
unified documentation system which would include them all,
and it shouldn't be that difficult and it wasn't,
it was a very, you know, web is a very simple system.
(futuristic music)
- [Narrator] Today, the web is considered one of computing's
most influential innovations.
It is used by billions of people daily to communicate,
access information, and perform and share
countless activities.
To make such an information-sharing system possible,
Berners-Lee invented the integrated tools that would become
the foundation of the world wide web: HTTP,
URLs, HTML, and the web browser.
The web was also intended to allow individuals
to share information to solve world problems.
- How does humanity come up with interesting idea
when the problem is in lots of peoples' heads,
and different parts of the solution are in different
peoples' heads, and they are all sitting,
looking at their screens, ready to type, ready to chat,
ready to code up visualization software,
ready to run programs, they will look for correlations,
they're trying to solve cancer,
you're trying to solve global warming.
Part of the goal of the web was to be a really powerful tool
for allowing many brains to be better than one brain.
- [Narrator] Berners-Lee warns there is a constant threat
surrounding control of the web.
- Some unholy mix of governments and companies often
tries to control the web.
So we always have to be aware of that.
- [Narrator] And the web hasn't turned out
exactly as he had hoped.
On the 28th anniversary of the web earlier this year,
Berners-Lee cited issues with losing control
of our personal data, the spread of misinformation,
and the need for transparency
with online political advertising.
- For the first twenty years of the web
it was really exciting to see all the things,
all the crazy things like Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap,
people building on top of the web.
And my assumption was that if we just keep the web open,
just keep it neutral, keep it royalty-free,
then innovation will bloom, and people would build
really, really valuable social systems
for both science and democracy.
Now, looking back just over these last couple of years,
there are obviously people have been using the web in some
ways where it isn't about science, it's about untruths,
it isn't about democracy, it's about unreasonable,
just manipulation of the audience, so, yeah,
I think, so my attitude has changed.
I feel that people who look at the web and analyze the web,
build the web, need to think about that,
and they need to really look at the way
social networks, work, and they need to take responsibility
when they build a social network for making,
looking at the bad things that happen on them,
and maybe reprogramming it, sort of just changing it
so that it works in a slightly different way.
- [Narrator] Despite these challenges, the world wide web
has had an enormous impact on our society.
And ACM recognizes the web as a contribution
of lasting and major technical importance.
It is for this reason Sir Tim Berners-Lee has been named
recipient of the 2016 A.M. Turning Award
on the 50th anniversary of the prize.
- Winning the Turing Award is very humbling.
I think, if I could suddenly meet Alan Turing now,
the first thing I'd do would be apologize for what happened
to him, what the British culture at the time did.
I'd explain to him that actually that being gay is okay now.
And that we're not in a perfect place
but we've come a long way.
Obviously it would be great to talk about,
we could just just sit him down with a
with a powerful debugger so he could just see
all the variables at the height of the language
change in real time.
- [Narrator] In 2004, Berners-Lee was knighted
by Queen Elizabeth the Second for his work.
He has received many other prestigious accolades,
but one that he remembers in great detail is his
honor at the 2012 Summer Olympics opening ceremony
in London, where he reminded the world
that the web is for everyone.
- The whole thing was done at the stadium, and I said
can I tweet that at the same time?
And I felt that when I was pressing that button,
I was doing that for all the geeks, for all the people
who are not gonna end up in that Olympic stadium
and enjoy the closing ceremony because you have to be
kind of sporty, and I felt like I was a representative
of all the software technology world.
- [Narrator] Berners-Lee says it has taken all of us
to build the web we have, and now it's up to all of us
to build the web we want for everyone.
- If you're a web developer, then it's good to spend
90% of your time developing web pages,
developing cool javascript software and so on,
but then maybe for the other 10% of your time
you should think about okay, but am I taking for granted
the fact that this will have this new web net neutrality?
Am I taking for granted that the fact this my users
will be able to use my site.
Should I actually be joining groups
where I get informed about issues.
So spending a bit of that time to defend
the integrity of the web we're all using.
Because, if we just take it for granted, it will go away.
- [Narrator] We feature Sir Tim Berners-Lee
in the June 2017 Communications of the ACM.