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A ceremony to confer the Doctorate Honoris Causa upon Sir Timothy Berners-Lee was held at the Mita Public Speaking Hall (Mita Enzetsu-kan) from 10:00 a.m. on Tuesday, March 14.

Sir Timothy, who is the director of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), invented the fundamental concept and developed the core system of the World Wide Web (WWW), which is an integral element of the infrastructure of our current information society. In 1990, he created the world’s first web client and web server. The specs for URL, HTTP, and HTML, which were all originally proposed by Sir Timothy and spread with web technology, led to the possibility of getting web access “anytime, anywhere, from any device” and dramatically revolutionized the lives of people around the world. In high recognition of these achievements, Keio University decided to confer the Doctorate Honoris Causa upon him.

The Wagner Society sang the Alma Mater “The Juku-ka” as Sir Timothy entered the hall. Associate Professor Rodney Van Meter of the Faculty of Environment and Information Studies served as the master of ceremonies, and Professor Jun Murai, Dean of the Faculty of Environment and Information Studies, read the citation. Next, President Seike conferred the Doctorate Honoris Causa upon Sir Timothy and a congratulatory address was given by His Excellency Paul Madden CMG, the British Ambassador to Japan. This was followed by an address of thanks from Sir Timothy.

After the ceremony, a commemorative lecture was held at the South School Building Hall. In his lecture, Sir Timothy talked about his experiences during the course of inventing the World Wide Web, his views on how the Internet has changed, and his opinions on how SNS is being used. He ended his talk with Japanese words “kore wa subete no hito no tame no mono desu,” meaning “this is for everyone,” which was a message Sir Timothy shared through Twitter during the opening ceremony of London 2012. After the lecture, he had a discussion with Professor Murai, and during the questions and answers session, students did not stop asking questions until the end of the event was announced.