WWWeb of Solutions wins inaugural Millennium Technology Prize

The honour, which is accompanied by one million euros, is bestowed by the Finnish Technology Award Foundation as international acknowledgement for an outstanding technological innovation that directly promotes people's quality of life, is based on humane values, and encourages sustainable economic development.

"The Web has significantly enhanced many people's ability to obtain information central to their lives," says Pekka Tarjanne, former Secretary General of the International Telecommunication Union and chairman of the International Award Selection Committee. "The Web is encouraging new types of social networks, supporting transparency and democracy, and opening up novel avenues for information management and business development."

Berners-Lee, with a background in system design in real-time communications and text-processing software development, made the invention while working at CERN, world's largest particle physics laboratory in Geneva, Switzerland. The Web was first made available to the public in 1991. Berners-Lee created the first server, browser, and protocols central to the operation of the Web: the URL address, HTTP transmission protocol and HTML code.

Currently Berners-Lee works at the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), in Boston. Born in 1955 and brought up in London, UK, he is the son of two mathematicians who met while working on the Ferranti Mark I, the first commercially available computer. In 1976, he graduated at Oxford University in physics and was Knighted for his pioneering work in 2003.

Promoting peace
He gave the World Wide Web to the world to use for all time for free and considers this to have been a necessity: "The decision to make the Web an open system was necessary for it to be universal. Had the technology been proprietary it would probably not have taken off. You can't propose that something be a universal space and at the same time keep control of it."

He continues, "The Web can turn routine tasks over to machines, and let people get on with the creativity. It can help us work together more effectively, remove misunderstanding, and bring about peace and harmony on a global scale. But it can only do these things if we learn to use it wisely, and we think very carefully about both the technology and the laws we make or change around it."

The World Wide Web in the Middle East
Commenting on the relevance of the web to developing economies, Tytti Nahi, Secretary of the Millennium Technology Prize events, and a development economist by training, states "Amongst the clearest developmental benefits of the web is its potential to encourage educational progress. The web can bring an unprecedented wealth of up-to-date educational resources to students and teachers disposal, supporting teacher training and potentially raising overall academic standards."

"Such educational progress may be vital for economic growth and employment creation in the Middle East, as producers are increasingly exposed to competition from the East Asian lower-cost production on the one hand and the East European and Latin American better-educated workforce on the other."

In the seven largest diversified economies (Algeria, Egypt, Iran, Jordan, Morocco, Pakistan and Tunisia), the average unemployment rate rose from 12.7% in 1990 to 15% in 2000 and is forecasted to rise even further in the next decade.

"The web stands alongside the great innovations of history and like these innovations its human impact will not be determined by technical factors alone", expands Dr Jan Derry of London Knowledge Lab, University of London. "Extensive research will be necessary to discover what can clearly be a massive contribution of the web to education in the Gulf region, where noticeable progress in technical infrastructure has already been made."'

Neek Alyani, technology strategy advisor from Tehran Business Associates emphasizes: "The potential of the World Wide Web lies in its manipulation and application, as a mediating tool and a virtual arena, to simplify or resolve our day to day personal and corporate problems, and by developing the notion of information and knowledge sharing. On a personal, business and government level, we in the Middle East region are faced with complex socio-economic and cultural questions, choices and decisions, arising from the Web, in the coming decade."

"We should continue tailoring the technology, be it World Wide Web, telecom innovations or other high-tech, to fit our economic and socio-cultural needs: lead and manage the sustainability of the change process. That way we stand a better chance of maximizing our productivity, deliver quality services and follow the demands of today's globalised markets", comments Ali Al Kamali, Managing Director of Dubai based Datamatix and Chairman of Gitex Conferences' Organizing Committee.

At a recent international management conference, Professor Ali N. Mashayekhi, the Management and Economics dean of Tehran's Sharif University of Technology, reiterated that the increasing uptake of internet and web enabled services will disruptively transform and punctuate change in the corporate landscape of the region.

Salem Al Shair, director of e-Services, Dubai e-Government has stated the continued support of his departmental resources in pursuing the full potential of web enabled services such as e-government.

Nadir Hadj Hammou, Resident Representative of the United Nations Development Programme in the UAE, has previously outlined that the UNDP pursues the goal of bridging the digital divide and in doing so, will work with a wide range of innovative ICT initiatives for human development in areas ranging from government to business development, to education and health.

As the UN General Secretary, Kofi Annan recently commented: "Information technology is not a magic formula that is going to solve all our problems. But it is a powerful force that can and must be harnessed to our global mission of peace and development."

Regional analysts generally agree that the uptake of internet and the World Wide Web has been increasing in the Middle East but the slow progress of larger regional states is in stark contrast to the progress in the prime movers, such as some of the GCC nations.

International cross-disciplinary conference
The Finnish Technology Award Foundation, an independent fund established in 2002, will award the Millennium Technology Prize biennially for innovations in four technological fields: health care and life sciences; communication and information; new materials and processes; and energy and the environment.

Berners-Lee will be lauded at an award ceremony in Helsinki's Finlandia Hall on 15th June 2004, to be held in conjunction with the inaugural Millennium Technology Conference, "Future Society - Future Technology."