[W3C Press Release] The World Celebrates 25 Years of the Web

Hello,

W3C and the Web Foundation issued a joint press release a moment ago:

  The World Celebrates 25 Years of the Web
  http://www.webat25.org/news/press-release-the-world-celebrates-25-years-of-the-web

  The full text is below; the version online has additional links as well as links to translations.
  
For more W3C press releases and media advisories, see:
 http://www.w3.org/Press/

Media contact:
 Ian Jacobs, <w3t-pr@w3.org>, +1.718 260 9447 


===============

The World Celebrates 25 Years of the Web

Web users across the globe share #web25 birthday messages to mark the
day Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web

12 March, 2014. Today, around the world, people are joining Web
inventor Tim Berners-Lee in wishing the World Wide Web a happy 25th
birthday. To mark the occasion, everyone is encouraged to share
birthday greetings on social media using #web25. Select greetings will
also be posted on a virtual birthday card on the official anniversary
site webat25.org.

Berners-Lee and two organisations close to him - the World Wide Web
Foundation and the World Wide Web Consortium, will also be asking
people to take action to protect and enhance the open Web in 2014.

Recalling the theme of his famous tweet during the 2012 Olympics
opening ceremony, “This is for Everyone”, Berners-Lee said:

    “The Web’s billions of users are what have made it great. I hope
    that many of them will join me today in celebrating this important
    milestone.  I also hope this anniversary will spark a global
    conversation about our need to defend principles that have made
    the Web successful, and to unlock the Web’s untapped potential. I
    believe we can build a Web that truly is for everyone: one that is
    accessible to all, from any device, and one that empowers all of
    us to achieve our dignity, rights and potential as humans. Tell us
    about your dream for the Web with #web25.”

First proposed in March 1989, the Web has transformed the way the
world communicates, creates and collaborates. Over two in five of the
world’s population are now connected, often bridging geographical and
social divides. Each minute, they send each other hundreds of millions
of messages, share 20 million photos, and exchange at least $15m worth
of goods and services. The success of the Web can be traced to its
original design as a decentralised system and an open architecture
anyone could help to build.

However, the open Web’s true potential as a tool for empowering
everyone has yet to be realised, and could dwindle if key challenges
are not solved. Throughout 2014 and beyond, Berners-Lee is seeking to
engage Web users, business and policy-makers in debating critical
issues such as:

    * How do we connect the almost three in five people around the world
      who are not yet connected to the Web?

    * Regulation of the Internet is hotly contested terrain globally
      and nationally. What fresh, inclusive solutions can avoid the
      damage of a fragmented Web?

    * Our ability to use the Web to have a say and organise
      collectively is under threat from censorship and surveillance,
      whilst anyone online is threatened by cybercrime. How can we
      meet society’s growing needs for online freedom and privacy as
      well as security?

    * Globally, fewer than 10% of key government datasets have have
      been opened up for free re-use online, drastically limiting
      Web-powered innovation in areas such as improving public
      transport and fighting corruption. What steps can be taken to
      unlock the true power of open data?

    * The Open Web Platform must be capable of expanding to meet
      industry demand for interoperability, mobility, and performance
      across connected devices of all shapes and sizes. How do we
      tackle the challenges raised by such diversity?

    * How do we promote a rich ecosystem of diversity and innovation
      for the long-term, rather than less fertile walled gardens?

“If we want a Web that is truly for everyone, then everyone must play
a role in shaping its next 25 years,” Berners-Lee concluded.

To get started, we invite you to:

    * Send your birthday greetings via social media using hashtag
      #web25 and visit webat25.org

    * Join Tim Berners-Lee’s for a Reddit Ask Me Anything on 12 March
      2014 at 19.00 GMT

    * Sign up to join the Web We Want Campaign, co-organized by the
      Web Foundation, to find out how to participate in events and
      actions in your country or community to defend users’ rights on
      and to the Web.

    * Attend or watch the live stream of W3C’s 20th Anniversary
      Symposium, when we will imagine the future of the Web through
      discussion and gala dinner, to take place 29 October in Santa
      Clara, California.

Many organizations will engage in birthday activities all year
long. To learn more, visit webat25.org. For press requests, email
press@webat25.org.  

Web 25 Sponsors

W3C and the World Wide Web Foundation would like to thank all of the
sponsors who are helping to make these activities possible:

    Ford Foundation
    ICANN
    Intel
    Twitter
    Yahoo!

A Brief History of the Early Web

    * March 1989: “Information Management: A Proposal” written by Tim
      Berners-Lee (TBL) and circulated for comments at CERN. October
      1990: TBL starts work on a hypertext GUI browser+editor using
      the NeXTStep development environment. He makes up “WorldWideWeb”
      as a name for the program and project.

    * August 1991: Web software made available on the Internet via
      FTP.

    * May 1992: Pei Wei’s “Viola” GUI browser for X test version

    * February 1993: National Center for Supercomputing Applications
      (NCSA) release first alpha version of Marc Andreessen’s “Mosaic
      for X”

    * April 1993: CERN’s declares that WWW technology would be freely
      usable by anyone, with no fees being payable to CERN.

    * May 1994: First International WWW Conference, CERN, Geneva.

    * October 1994: World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) founded

About Tim Berners-Lee

A graduate of Oxford University, Tim Berners-Lee invented the World
Wide Web, an internet-based hypermedia initiative for global
information sharing while at CERN, the European Particle Physics
Laboratory, in 1989. He wrote the first web client and server in
1990. His specifications of URIs, HTTP and HTML were refined as Web
technology spread. He is Director of W3C and a Director of the World
Wide Web Foundation.  In addition, He is the 3Com Founders Professor
of Engineering in the School of Engineering with a joint appointment
in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at
the Laboratory for Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence (
CSAIL) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) where he
also heads the Decentralized Information Group (DIG). He is also a
Professor in the Electronics and Computer Science Department at the
University of Southampton, UK.

About the World Wide Web Consortium

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is an international consortium
where Member organizations, a full-time staff, and the public work
together to develop Web standards. W3C primarily pursues its mission
through the creation of Web standards and guidelines designed to
ensure long-term growth for the Web. The Open Web Platform is a
current major focus. Over 375 organizations are Members of the
Consortium. W3C is jointly run by the MIT Computer Science and
Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (MIT CSAIL) in the USA, the
European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics (ERCIM)
headquartered in France, Keio University in Japan, and Beihang
University in China, and has additional Offices worldwide. For more
information see http://www.w3.org/

About the World Wide Web Foundation

Established by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the World Wide Web Foundation
(webfoundation.org) seeks to establish the open Web as a global public
good and a basic right, creating a world where everyone, everywhere
can use the Web to communicate, collaborate and innovate freely.

The Web Foundation’s team of 20 works with more than 90 partner
organisations across 60 countries. Our current initiatives include
co-leading the burgeoning Web We Want movement (webwewant.org),
creating the world’s first ever Open Data Contracting Standard, and
spearheading the Alliance for Affordable Internet (a4ai.org), the
broadest technology sector coalition.

The World Wide Web Foundation also produces the Web Index
(thewebindex.org), the world’s first multi-dimensional measure of the
Web’s growth, utility and impact on people and nations. Launched in
2012 to critical acclaim, the 2013 version included data on 20 more
countries, as well as enhanced indicators on key topics such as
affordability, censorship and surveillance, gender and open data.

Sources

    ITU: http://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Statistics/Pages/publications/mis2013.aspx
    Open Data Barometer: http://www.opendataresearch.org/project/2013/odb
    http://www.opendataresearch.org/content/2013/539/press-release-open-data-barometer
    Intel: http://scoop.intel.com/what-happens-in-an-internet-minute/
    Mckinsey: http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/high_tech_telecoms_internet/internet_matters 
--
Ian Jacobs <ij@w3.org>      http://www.w3.org/People/Jacobs
Tel:                       +1 718 260 9447

Received on Tuesday, 11 March 2014 23:58:58 UTC