Sir Tim Berners-Lee lecture to be live-streamed

Media release – 29 January 2013

This release is available online at http://tinyurl.com/bzws6qz

Tomorrow evening, the inventor of the World Wide Web – Sir Tim Berners-Lee – will deliver a rare public lecture in Wellington exploring the benefits of an open and uncaptureable Internet. Due to an unprecedented level of public interest, a live-stream has been arranged for those who have missed out on tickets.

Berners-Lee’s lecture is proudly hosted by InternetNZ (Internet New Zealand Inc), with the support of a number of sponsors – the Department of Internal Affairs, Chorus, Catalyst IT and Google.

The sold-out lecture will take place at 5.30pm at Soundings Theatre, Te Papa on Wednesday 30 January.

InternetNZ Community and Collaboration Lead Ellen Strickland says the wider community has thrown its weight behind Sir Tim’s lecture, with Open New Zealand organising live streaming venues in Auckland and Wellington.

Details of the live stream are available at http://new.livestream.com/i-filmscience/tbl-internetnz. Those interested in attending the live stream gatherings are encouraged to signup at https://tbl-livestream.lilregie.com/step1.

InternetNZ is pleased to see this incredible community support and demand to participate in the public lecture, says Strickland. “The live Web stream is a fitting way for Sir Tim’s message to reach a broader audience, and we welcome Open New Zealand’s move to organise venues for people to come together and watch the lecture together.

InternetNZ Policy Lead Susan Chalmers says Sir Tim’s message about Internet openness is critically important. Today’s Internet has openness at its core. The protocols that make up the fabric of the Internet allow anyone, anywhere to write new applications, develop new ideas and share them with the world.

“Sir Tim’s invention of the World Wide Web is a brilliant example of this. He did not need corporate approval to share the WWW with the world. He did not need to buy access to the technology. No government or regulator had to approve it before the public could use it.

“This openness is what makes the Internet so powerful. Innovation without permission, accessible to all, can change things for the better,” she says.

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About InternetNZ:
InternetNZ (Internet New Zealand Inc) is the non-profit open membership organisation dedicated to protecting and promoting the Internet in New Zealand and fostering a coordinated, cooperative approach to its ongoing development.

The primary objective of InternetNZ is “high performance and unfettered access for all” so the Internet continues to operate in an open environment that cannot be captured by any entity or individual for their own ends.

About Sir Tim Berners-Lee:
A graduate of Oxford University, Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web, an internet-based hypermedia initiative for global information sharing while at CERN, the European Particle Physics Laboratory, in 1989. He wrote the first web client and server in 1990. His specifications of URLs, HTTP and HTML were refined as Web technology spread.

He is the 3Com Founders Professor of Engineering in the School of Engineering with a joint appointment in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the Laboratory for Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence (CSAIL) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) where he also heads the Decentralized Information Group
(DIG). He is also a Professor in the Electronics and Computer Science Department at the University of Southampton, UK.

He is the Director of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), a Web standards organization founded in 1994 which develops interoperable technologies (specifications, guidelines, software, and tools) to lead the Web to its full potential. He was a Director of the Web Science Trust (WST) launched in 2009 to promote research and education in Web Science, the multidisciplinary study of humanity connected by technology.

Tim is a Director of the World Wide Web Foundation, launched in 2009 to coordinate efforts to further the potential of the Web to benefit humanity. He has promoted open government data globally and is a member of the UK’s Transparency Board.

In 2001 he became a Fellow of the Royal Society. He has been the recipient of several international awards including the Japan Prize, the Prince of Asturias Foundation Prize, the Millennium Technology Prize and Germany’s Die Quadriga award. In 2004 he was knighted by H.M. Queen Elizabeth and in 2007 he was awarded the Order of Merit. In 2009 he was elected a foreign associate of the National Academy of Sciences. He is the author of “Weaving the Web“.

About the Down Under Tour:
Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the Web, is coming to Australia and New Zealand for the first time in over 15 years. This is a unique opportunity to hear from someone who has been involved in the shaping of the Web since the beginning and to learn about the history of the world's most important asset and disruption.

Please see http://tbldownunder.org for all the latest information on the full tour.

ENDS

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