The Internet started in the United States more than 50 years ago as a military weapon in the Cold War. Tim Berners-Lee, a British scientist at CERN, invented the World Wide Web (WWW) in 1989. The web was originally conceived and developed to meet the demand for automatic information-sharing between scientists in universities and institutes around the world. For years, scientists and researchers used it to communicate and share data with one another.
We cannot attribute the invention of the internet to an individual person. Instead, it has evolved over time. However, August 23, 1991 marked an important milestone in history- the birth of our dear Internet. The World Wide Web was opened for public use. This celebration is actually called ‘Internaut Day’. On this day, the first web page was made public. Tim Berners-Lee however seems not to be sure of who came up with internaut day, as it appears in his tweet.
Who on earth made up August 23? #getitright https://t.co/k76dhmjlNF
— Tim Berners-Lee (@timberners_lee) August 23, 2016
The first website in the world was dedicated to the World Wide Web project itself and was hosted on Berners-Lee’s NeXT computer. The website described the basic features of the web; how to access other people’s documents and how to set up your own server. Here is what the first website looked like.
On 30 April 1993 CERN put the World Wide Web software in the public domain. CERN made the next release available with an open license, as a more sure way to maximize its dissemination. Through these actions, making the software required to run a web server freely available, along with a basic browser and a library of code, the web was allowed to flourish.
25 years on from 1991, almost everyone’s life revolves around the internet. Millions are constantly on the internet looking for information. Transportation, Hotel Bookings, health care; even education relies on the internet. We have seen a boom in innovations that provide solutions to daily problems. The world has virtually shrunk into a village, now that we can communicate with people and get news from across the world.
Among the innovations is our mwalimoo, a solution that enables students to access educational content on the internet. As you celebrate the internet, you are welcome to use or refer a student to our mobile e-learning platform. We love to get feedback from our users. You can give us this feedback either in the comments section or call us on 0707908308.