Born on June 8, 1965, Tim Berners-Lee, often referred to as the inventor of the internet, turned 65 yesterday. More than 30 years ago, on March 12, 1989, Berners-Lee unknowingly wrote history by laying the foundations of what would later become known as the World Wide Web. At that time, working at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), Berners-Lee shared a document with colleagues titled 'Information Management: A Proposal', in which he proposed the creation of a networked hypertext system to share information among colleagues within CERN.
– We should work on a universally connected information system – wrote Berners-Lee in his conclusion, adding that the goal is to enable a place where any data deemed important can be found. The result should be attractive enough for the shared information to cross a critical threshold, thereby encouraging greater use of the system, Berners-Lee added in his conclusion.
Although this sounds like a description of the internet as we know it, it was not until the following year that Berners-Lee coined the term WorldWideWeb in another proposal authored by Robert Calliau, which was still more focused on the scientific community than on the global public.
Despite its name and apparent ubiquity, 30 years after its birth, the World Wide Web is not nearly as universally accessible as its name suggests.
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According to the latest estimates from the International Telecommunication Union, an agency operating under the auspices of the UN and specializing in information and internet technologies, only 54 out of 100 citizens of the world used the internet in 2019.
While internet access in regions like North America and Europe has become as normal as access to water or electricity, people in less developed regions still often lack access to what has likely become the most important source of information of our time.
This is reflected in the fact that internet penetration ranges from 86.6 percent in developed countries to 53.6 percent in developing countries and less than 20 percent in the least developed countries in the world.
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