Today, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web and founding director of the World Wide Web Foundation, will receive the 2015 Gottlieb Duttweiler Prize at a ceremony in Zurich. This award – made by the Gottlieb Duttweiler Institute – is for “outstanding contributions to the well-being of the wider community and to a cultural, social or economic environment in which everyone can realize their potential and play an independent part in its development”. It is only made infrequently, and past recipients have included former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan (2008) and Vaclav Havel (1990), who served as president of both Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic. The Gottlieb Duttweiler Institute has also recently released their ‘Thought Leaders 2014‘ report, which names Berners-Lee as the second-most influential thinker in 2014.

Congratulations from the Web Foundation team to Sir Tim on this accolade.