Chief Executive Officer of the World Wide Web Consortium
Tomorrow’s Web
Thursday, October 9, 2008
Rector Science Complex, Stafford Lecture Hall – 7:00 p.m.
New technology standards will shortly be finalized for the World Wide Web. These standards will transform the Web as we know it, permitting wide-spreadintegration of data, across an expanding range of Web sites and devices, and an explosion in the number of Web site creators and consumers. This future Web will be rich with disruption, opportunities, and challenges.
Topical Background
The Internet has become part of the daily lives of many people and organizations around the world. Emerging as one of the key dimensions of a globalized world, the Internet is accessible on many different types of devices, including cell phones and personal digital assistants.
The World Wide Web was created in 1989 by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, a British scientist working at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva, Switzerland. Today, a strong force behind the promotion of a “Web for Everyone†is the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). Tim Berners-Lee and others created W3C as an industry consortium dedicated to building consensus around Web technologies.
Long-term goals of the World Wide Web Consortium:
• Web for Everyone
• Web on Everything including mobile phones, smart phones, personal digital assistants, interactive television systems, voice response systems, kiosks and even certain domestic appliances.
• Knowledge Base that is more than just an immense book of information. It will also be a vast data base that, if designed carefully, can allow computers to do more useful work. By developing a Web that holds information for both human and machine processing, W3C aims to enable people to solve problems that would otherwise be too tedious or complex to solve.
• Trust and Confidence is needed for the Web to be a useful medium for social transactions. While technology cannot guarantee trust, it should enable secure transactions with trusted parties, be they people, organizations, or services.
About the Speaker
“The social value of the Web is that it enables human communication,
commerce, and opportunities to share knowledge. One of W3C’s primary
goals is to make these benefits available to all people, whatever their
hardware, software, network infrastructure, native language, culture,
geographical location, or physical or mental ability.”
-Steve Bratt, June 2007
Steve Bratt is the Chief Executive Officer at the World Wide Web Consortium where he is responsible for the organization’s world-wide operations, overall management of member relations and many other duties. The World Wide Web Consortium concentrates on long-term web growth. By formulating standards that reinforce the importance of Web compatibility and global consensus, the organization works to help create a Web available to everyone.
Before joining the consortium in 2002, Bratt performed many roles throughout industry and government. In 1997, he was named coordinator of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty International Data in Vienna, Austria where he was responsible for establishing the data center and creating standards for data exchange between 300 world-wide sensors and 170 nations. From 1984 to 1997, he spearheaded research initiatives first at Science Applications International Corporation and then as a program manager at Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Bratt received his bachelor’s degree from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and his doctorate from Pennsylvania State University.
Related Links
World Wide Web Consortium
Video of the Program