The Draper Prize
Exhibit [Return to listing page]
Blue Wing, Level 1
Each year, the Museum of Science creates a display about the Draper Prize winners and their invention. This year's display honors Sir Timothy Berners-Lee, who created the World Wide Web.
In the 1980s, Berners-Lee was working at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, when he developed the proposal for his breakthrough idea. At the time, software engineers like Berners-Lee were responsible for writing the programs that controlled experiments at CERN. Over the course of a given job, they might have to use half a dozen different computers and operating systems, none of which could easily share information. Berners-Lee developed his "WorldWideWeb" project to allow people to work together by sharing documents in a what-you-see-is-what-you-get (WYSIWHYG) browser, forming the basis for Web browsing as we know it today.
When the Web started to become popular, CERN announced that anyone could use the Web protocol and code, royalty free. This meant that people could experiment with and start their own websites without worrying that might have to pay CERN a license fee.
Today, Timothy Berners-Lee directs The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the international consortium that develops new standards and protocols for the Web. He is also a senior researcher at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) and professor of computer science at the University of Southampton. He received the Draper Price at the Museum of Science in May 2007.
Visit the exhibit to see learn more about Berners-Lee's accomplishments and the impact the Web has had on our society.
The Draper Prize is awarded annually by the National Academy of Engineering to recognize outstanding achievements in engineering and technology that have contributed to the well-being and freedom of humanity. The prize was endowed by Draper Laboratory in Cambridge, Mass., to raise awareness of the social contributions made by engineering and technology and to honor Charles Stark Draper, founder of Draper Laboratory and institute professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
