Tim Berners-Lee

Tim Berners-Lee is the primary inventor of the World Wide Web, the system of text links and multimedia capabilities that made the Internet accessible to mass audiences. Lee wrote the original Web software himself in 1990 and made it available on the Internet in 1991. He joined MIT's Laboratory for Computer Science in 1994 and remains a leading authority on Internet issues. His 1999 book Weaving the Web described the Web's birth and growth. In 2003, Queen Elizabeth II announced that Berners-Lee would be made a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE) for his work on the Web.

Extra credit: In 2004, Berners-Lee was awarded the first Millennium Technology Prize, a Finland-based award for excellence which carries a cash prize of one million Euros.