The Royal Academy of Engineering announced today that Tim Berners-Lee, Marc Andreessen, Vinton Cerf, Robert Kahn, and Louis Pouzin are the recipients of the new Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering, which recognizes "outstanding advances in engineering that have changed the world and benefited humanity." The award is shared by Berners-Lee for his invention of the Web, Andreessen for his work on the Mosaic browser, and Pouzin, Cerf, and Kahn for their pioneering work on fundamental Internet protocols.

"The prize recognises what has been a roller-coaster ride of wonderful international collaboration," said Berners-Lee. "Bob and Vint’s work on building the internet was re-enforced by Louis’ work on datagrams and that enabled me to invent the Web. Marc’s determined and perceptive work built on these platforms a product which became widely deployed across nations and computing platforms. I am honoured to receive this accolade and humbled to share it with them. I want the Web to inspire and empower new generations of engineers --boys and, especially, girls-- who will build, in turn, their own platforms, to improve our global society. I hope the message behind this award, along with the work we are doing with the World Wide Web Foundation and W3C, will assist in achieving the vision of a web that is open, accessible and of value to all."

Learn more about how the Web is expanding into a full-fledged programming environment for rich applications, documents, and data: the Open Web Platform.