Irrefutably, a twentieth century figure deserving reverence. Defer one and all to the man responsible for a truly great invention: the World Wide Web server.
Berners-Lee was born in 1955 in London to parents who were both mathematicians, so its no surprise that he excelled in a field governed by formulas and algorithms. He always an intellectual achiever, as his first from Queen’s College, Oxford in 1976 proves.
While there, he built his first computer with a soldering iron, TTL gates, an M6800 processor and an old television. Crude yes, but clear evidence of the ingenuity which would change the world we live in.
Stints at Image Computer Systems, Dorset and Telecommunications in Poole shaped his early career. But it was in 1990 at the European Particle Physics Laboratory in Geneva that he began work on his hypertext browser, before 1991’s full launch.
Its appeal was so great, word spread at a phenomenal pace. The man whose invention was as epoch-making as the telephone or motorcar was deservedly named one of the hundred greatest minds of the twentieth century and knighted in 2004.
Vision and technical brilliance aside, his other great trait was his altruism: thanks to Sir Tim, the web is patent-free and free from royalties and charges. Undeniably a genius and a heartwarming gent to boot.
