Berners-Lee: Web could cure cancer and halt climate change
by Stevie Smith - Jun 9 2009, 15:30
The Web still has great things to give, according to Sir Tim Berners-Lee. Image: Silvio Tanaka/Flickr.
For many of its detractors, the Internet will always be little more than a haven of frivolous gossip, misinformation and pornography. However, the Web’s founding father is holding out for a grander future, with the Internet playing a significant role in human development.
Specifically, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the man credited with creating the Web as we know it, has said he sees the Internet contributing heavily towards the development of cures for presently incurable diseases and also in helping combat the onslaught of climate change.
His comments, which clearly show a belief that the Web is a tool with a wealth of still unrealised potential, were made in New York City upon accepting a lifetime achievement award at the annual Webby awards.
“The (Internet) explodes when somebody has the creativity to look at a piece of data that has been put there for one reason but realises they can connect it with something else,” commented Berners-Lee in a BBC interview.
“(Like) cure a disease or figure something out to do with Alzheimer’s… or cancer… or realise something about global warming because we managed to get all the data about the state of the world out there on the web,” he added.
According to the renowned Internet pioneer, the expansive online environment created by the Web boasts a massive amount of data, which in turn gives both scientists and regular users access to potentially world-changing power.
Born in London on June 08, 1955, Sir Tim Berners-Lee invented the Web in 1989 in order to enable scientists at the CERN nuclear research facility in Switzerland to quickly share electronic documents over a small, localised computer system.
Educated at Queen’s College Oxford and knighted by the crown in 2004 in honour of his achievements in the field of technology, Berners-Lee now serves as a prominent computer science professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Boston.
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