World Wide Web Consortium to Celebrate Ten Year Anniversary with Special Event in December

http://www.w3.org/ -- 13 October 2004 -- The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) will mark the ten year anniversary of its founding with a symposium on 1 December 2004, at Boston's Fairmont Copley Plaza hotel. The day-long event will feature presentations by and discussions with luminaries from around the world whose contributions have played a key role in creating the Web, ensuring that the Web is open and accessible to everyone worldwide, and helping the Web to reach its full potential. Although attendance to the event is limited to W3C Members and invited guests, plans are being made to make the content of the day's lectures and talks available to the public.

WHAT: Ten Year Anniversary Symposium Celebrates Founding of World Wide Web Consortium

The event will include talks, debates, and panel sessions focused on personal reflections about how the Web got started by the people who were there; why the World Wide Web Consortium was founded; its role today in leading the Web to its full potential; and presentations and projections about the future of the Web.

WHO: Luminaries from the Web Community, W3C Team and Members, and Invited Guests

The program will open with a welcome from MIT president Dr. Charles M. Vest, who was instrumental in encouraging the W3C to establish its residence at MIT, the first host university. Sir Timothy Berners-Lee, KBE, inventor of the World Wide Web and founder of the World Wide Web Consortium, will reunite with friends, former colleagues, and members of the technology community involved in the early stages of the Web to share personal reflections and stories about how it all got started. Robert Metcalfe, inventor of Ethernet, founder of 3Com Corporation, and currently General Partner, Polaris Venture Partners, will serve as event moderator throughout the day and introduce subsequent panels and speakers who will address the impact the Web has had on business, science, education, society and culture.

Participants such as Jean-François Abramatic, Chief Product Officer, ILOG, and Michael Cosnard, Director of INRIA Sophia-Antipolis and Manager of ERCIM, will bring European insights to the impact of the Web and the founding of the W3C. Denis Lacroix, Director Product Development, Amadeus, Takeshi Natsuno, Head of Multimedia Services Department, NTT DoCoMo, Tim O'Reilly, Founder and CEO, O'Reilly Media, and William (Bill) Ruh, Global Practice Director, Cisco Systems will provide perspectives from international business and industry. Additional speakers are expected to be confirmed shortly and will appear on the W3C10 Web page.

WHEN: 1 December 2004

WHERE: Fairmont Copley Plaza hotel, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

Public Greeting Card

Well-wishers may recognize and acknowledge the W3C's ten year anniversary by signing the public greeting card.

W3C10 Sponsors

The World Wide Web Consortium is grateful to W3C10 Platinum sponsor MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), and to all of the Member organization, media, and courtesy sponsors who have generously agreed to provide financial or in-kind services to help ensure the success of the W3C Tenth Anniversary Celebration.

About the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)

The W3C was created to lead the Web to its full potential by developing common protocols that promote its evolution and ensure its interoperability. It is an international industry consortium jointly run by the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (MIT CSAIL) in the USA, the European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics (ERCIM) headquartered in France and Keio University in Japan. Services provided by the Consortium include: a repository of information about the World Wide Web for developers and users, and various prototype and sample applications to demonstrate use of new technology. To date, nearly 400 organizations are Members of the Consortium. For more information see http://www.w3.org/

 

Contact Americas and Australia --

Karen Myers, <karen@w3.org>, +1.617.253.5509 or +1.978.502.6218

Contact Europe, Africa and Middle East --

Marie-Claire Forgue, <mcf@w3.org>, +33.492.38.75.94

Contact Asia --

Yasuyuki Hirakawa <chibao@w3.org>, +81.466.49.1170