For his work, he was dubbed a Knight Commander, Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II in 2004, making him Sir Tim Berners-Lee. Berners-Lee envisioned the Web as a free and open place.

But they might not be doing any of those things had he not invented the World Wide Web. Berners-Lee, 61, is this year’s recipient of the A.M. Turing Award, computing’s version of the Nobel Prize.