–  My Take  –

They have affected and improved life for almost every single human being on this earth, every day of the week, 52 weeks a year.   They have created billionaires, millionaires, middle class family incomes and indeed some bankruptcies. ??? ???? ????? ?? ????

They created a colossal and magical dream in which all are invited to chase.   A platform to educate the world. ??? ?????    An electronic encyclopedia that holds just about all the information in the history of the world.  They have made the entire library of mankind available to anyone, anywhere in the matter of seconds.  At home, at work, at a hotel, in another state, another country and even in outer space.  It’s all available at just a click of a 1/2″  plastic key.

  • CLICK. Voila!  The whole world is there in living color right before your eyes.
  • CLICK.  Voila!  You just sent a message to anyone in the world in a few seconds.
  • CLICK.  Voila!  You just sent your all the family photos to your relative in a far away land.
  • CLICK.  Voila!  The news, live, in color, in real time, right on your telephone.
  • CLICK. Voila!  You’re showing your new baby via your laptop to your parents 5000 miles away.
  • CLICK. Voila!  You just diagnosed your chest pain and called 911 – Saved your own life. ???????
  • CLICK. Voila!   – The list is endless…

Their names are Sir Timothy John “Tim” Berners-Lee and Robert Cailliau.  And 20 years ago on this day, November 12, 1990, they issued the

Proposal for a HyperText Project:

Abstract:

HyperText is a way to link and access information of various kinds as a web of nodes in which the user can browse at will. Potentially, HyperText provides a single user-interface to many large classes of stored information such as reports, notes, data-bases, computer documentation and on-line systems help. We propose the implementation of a simple scheme to incorporate several different servers of machine-stored information already available at CERN, including an analysis of the requirements for information access needs by experiments.

And from that grew the World Wide Web – The Internet and over ONE TRILLION websites.

Is there a Hall of Fame for Genius?  Is there a Hall of Fame for Benefiting Mankind?

These two men are sure bets.

Sir Timothy John “Tim” Berners-Lee born 8 June 1955 is a British engineer and computer scientist and MIT professor credited with inventing the World Wide Web, making the first proposal for it in March 1989. On 25 December 1990, with the help of Robert Cailliau and a young student at CERN, he implemented the first successful communication between an HTTP client and server via the Internet.


Robert Cailliau born 26 January 1947, is a Belgian informatics engineer and computer scientist who, together with Sir Tim Berners-Lee, developed the World Wide Web.