Sir Tim Berners-Lee - Everyone had distinct talents and gifts.
The World Wide Web's original purpose was to enable Sir Tim Berners-Lee and his colleagues at CERN to work together, to share their knowledge.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKx93rLgJVs
Apologies in advance for the sound on the video in some parts (planes went over us!) but please do listen to an amazing, inspirational speech!
At 11am Monday morning (24th June) a beautiful, commemorative mosaic was unveiled on the walls of the Sheen Lane Centre, SW14 to honour Sir Tim Berners-Lee, whom is a British computer scientist - best known as the inventor of the World Wide Web, which he created in 1989.
Sir Tim was born and raised in East Sheen and sincerely thanked his parents - “Sheen was a great place to grow up, thank you Mum and Dad for making such a good choice”, which gained a huge cheer and round of applause from an enthusiastic crowd. Therefore to honour his achievements, local community group, the Mortlake with East Sheen Society (MESS) commissioned a mosaic, to be installed near his birth place.
“A person of such distinction” – Lord True of Richmond Council & Resident of East Sheen
A very humble response was given and Sir Tim exclaimed - I’ve just been called a person of distinction, but one thing I have learnt from working with people to build the World Wide Web in the first place and all the excitement is - we are all people of distinction because we are all distinct!
Sir Tim insisted, everybody has their distinct talents and gifts and one of the magical things about the spread of the web, is that everybody has put in their distinct gives since the World Wide Web was designed. Everyone has had a go at installing a web browser when nobody knew what it was, or creating their own website, or even designing technology - it’s collaboration and the spirit of people doing this and putting their time and energy into it; is what it’s all about.
Sir Tim proved ‘such distinction’ through valuable answers to various questions from the audience. One question that stood out in particular, addressed humanity. He announced -
The World Wide Web is only available to one third of humanity, and everyone I work with is aware of that. So we started the World Wide Web Foundation (webfoundation.org) which is really concentrating on this issue. An alliance has been started between governments and companies to try to collaborate and work out - how in less economically developed countries, you can get online with as low a barrier to entry as possible. We’re looking at how you can get the cost of a phone with a web browser - which is how most people get online and, the cost of an initial data plan down, it’s all about affordable broadband and affordable mobile internet.
Sir Tim further explained, various projects such as www.webindex.org are also being implemented which denote how differnet countries are doing, “to make us as aware as possible, so we can try and get the other two thirds of humanity online if they want to be, as quickly as possible.”
The artwork was designed and created by a very talented, artist; Sue Edkins (www.mostlymosaics.co.uk). The mosaic comprises over 2,000 individually made ceramic pieces, symbolic of the internet as well as Berners- Lee renowned sentence declaimed during the Opening Ceremony of the 2012 Olympic Games “This is for everyone”.
With a crowd of around 300 people, including his Mother, Father & Brother - an inspiring piece of artwork was revealed, for an inspiring man; enjoyed by all.
Daniel Doherty the Happiness Evangelist at Digital Doughnut was honoured to meet him and even managed to get his Apple Macbook signed by the great man himself.