Tim Berners-Lee was born in 1955 in London. He studied Physics at Oxford, where he built his first computer. In 1982, while working as a software consultant for CERN, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research, he began to plan how online data and media files could be more easily linked.

His solution was to unite two existing concepts - the internet and Hypertext - and then hide them under a slick, consumer-friendly interface known as a browser.

His boldest move, however, was in insisting that it all remained 'open source', which allows the technology to develop organically without needing permission or royalties. This, more than anything, is the reason that the web became a world wide phenomenon.

"Had the technology been proprietary, and in my total control, it would probably not have taken off," explains Berners-Lee. "The decision to make the web an open system was necessary for it to be universal.

"You can't propose that something be a universal space and at the same time keep control of it."

Berners-Lee still heads the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston, but is one of the least recognised gurus in the world. Notoriously private, he maintains a web presence and seems quietly pleased with his legacy.

"I am very happy at the incredible richness of material on the web, and in the diversity of ways in which it is being used. There are many parts of the original dream which are not yet implemented ... but these can, and I think will, change."