Inventing the World Wide Web

Today, an estimated three billion people worldwide regularly use the World Wide Web to access information, book their holidays, do their shopping, watch movies, play video games and much more. This global computer network is a huge repository of human knowledge and culture. It has fundamentally changed the way people live and work.

In 1989, Tim Berners-Lee, a physicist working at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), developed the concept of hypertext, as he was looking for an easier and more efficient way for research centres to automatically share information via computer. This gave birth to the World Wide Web, which is undoubtedly the most well known spin-off from CERN. "Surfing the web" would never have been possible if CERN had not decided to make this tool public and ensured that it would remain free of charge.

CERN provides for collaboration among European States in nuclear research of a pure scientific and fundamental character. It is one of the world’s largest and most respected centres for scientific research.