My Hero: Timothy John 'Tim' Berners-lee

Sir Timothy John 'Tim' Berners-Lee, also known as 'TimBL,' is a British computer scientist, the inventor of the World Wide Web. In March 1989, he presented a suggestion for an information management system and successfully implemented the first communication between a Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) client and server via the Internet in November 1989.

Tim Berners-Lee was educated in Wandsworth and went on to further his studies in Oxford. He majored in physics and has an interest in computers programming projects and so he built his own computer out of spare parts when he was at Queen’s College. After graduating from Oxford, he took the position of Consultant Software Engineer for CERN located in Switzerland.

Berners-Lee, an independent contractor at CERN in 1980 began engaging in real-time distribution networks for scientific data retrieval and systems command where he faced the poor internal system for scientific information distribution and sharing alternatives besides the complex network of shifting projects networks and researchers.

During that period, he began to work on hypertext and built the prototype system ENQUIRE. Berners-Lee's vision of the web is more than just a communication or research tool, it is thinking outside the box and a route to increased social flexibility. Meanwhile, the program was not disclosed for public use, he left CERN late in 1980 and worked for John Poole’s Image Computer Systems, LTD which acquitted computer networking skills, and returned to CERN in 1984.

Picking up from where he left, he imagined a global data forum in which the world can link together permitting analysts to access information and share their opinions. This was a recognition of the trend in the technological environment which revealed a possibility for information being widely shared in the global environment as observed in this technological era. The importance of the idea of communication is important at this stage and the requirement of a convenient way to transfer data and share information was a spark in the early 80s since many pieces of computer technology were in their premature development stages.

However, in 1989 he projected a global hypertext idea and connected it to the internet, to be called the World Wide Web. The hypertext was devised to permit individuals to jointly work through connecting and sharing knowledge in the network of hypertext documents. The word World Wide Web was availed at CERN in December 1990 and released over the internet in 1991.

World wide web development enabled ease of access to data and knowledge for everyone in the world today. Many technological inventions are evolving and are building upon these chief milestones laid by the old inventors.

Berner-Lee is my hero because he had the courage to be innovative and did not give in to pressure for the people who did not catch up with his vision of the need to share data and make things possible. Starting from the fact that he built his own computer besides the exposure he acquired from his parents’ expertise.

Although there are many technologies emerging nowadays, most of them are just a buildup of systems of the existing phenomenon that were done by ancient inventors. These improvements increase efficiency and present a competitive way of executing tasks and by far improve the company’s capabilities in business value creation and delivery. Thus, they are equally or more essential for the business world today.

For an individual to be named an inventor, they should be able to recognize the spark. The spark may come from the political position of the country, economic status, societal opportunities, technological evolvements, environmental requirements, and or influenced by law or statutes. In order to identify this condition, they should tell the trends in the current environment.

The global arena in the 20th century has characterized the sharing of ideas and opinions which Berner-Lee envisaged years ago. The internet is the forum upon which most of the idea-sharing takes place with people undertaking research and acquiring knowledge which improves them and widens their knowledge base. Resultantly, it is growing to be a challenge to clearly point out the single inventors in the business environment. It is now being encouraged to work in teams to increase productivity and competitiveness in creating expected business value.

The current business environment is being led by digitalization and automation. These are unique tools in the business world that are contributing to greater productivity. All functions are now ‘smart’ than before. The adoption of exponential technologies is different across industries. It is somehow a determinant of the future success of the companies. If a company is operating in an environment where competitors are digital, it is likely that it may be pushed out of business if they possess not the capabilities to digitalize.

This is crucial because in the process of creating value, a company continuously be equipped with the potential to remain in business. The essence of integrating technological changes becomes inevitable. It is important for a company to formulate strategies to position itself better in the market.

As a manager or business associate, it is essential to assess the impact of the transformation and automation on the environment. The United Nations released Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which corporates in the business world measure their ability to create value as well as give back to stakeholders. There exists interdependence on the business and its outside environment. All businesses should be able to give back to society as much as it creates value, thus delivering shared value. For inventors nowadays, most systems are a buildup of what is already existing. Significant changes are done in teams and groups, so there are no more single heroic inventors.

References

1. https://webfoundation.org/about/vision/history-of-the-web/
2. https://home.cern/science/computing/birth-web
3. https://www.w3.org/History.html