October 2, 2008 | Read Time: 1 minute
The inventor of the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee, has announced plans for a new organization to help promote the use of the Web for scientific research and to ease the digital divide in developing nations.
The organization, which is scheduled to begin operations early next year, received $5-million from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, in Miami.
Mr. Berners-Lee said the goals of the World Wide Web Foundation, as the new organization is called, are broader than another group he now leads at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, called the World Wide Web Consortium. That body, started in 1994, focuses on setting technical standards for new Web features.
The new group hopes to work with standards groups, companies, and nonprofit organizations to see that Internet technologies are meeting society’s needs, Mr. Berners-Lee said at a news conference.
“It’s looking at the social impact, the global responsibility, as well as doing the science,” he said. “We’ll work to produce a technology that is good for humanity, which will be good for democracy, which will be good for science.”
Mr. Berners-Lee said it is too soon to name concrete projects the new group might tackle, but he listed assisting medical research on AIDS as a potential area of focus.
The World Wide Web Foundation hopes to raise $50-million to $100-million through a mix of large and small contributions.
For more information: Go to http://www.webfoundation.org.
