Dubai: The internet should be used to promote culture, language, and knowledge and help break down the boundaries between nations and people around the world, said the inventor of the World Wide Web, Sir Tim Berners Lee, at the first Knowledge Conference on Sunday.
“The web is designed without an attitude of what it should be used for,” said Lee, who invented the World Wide Web 25 years ago.
The man behind the internet revolution pointed out that with access to this web of knowledge comes power. A person with access to the web has a higher capacity and is more resourceful than one who is not connected, he said.
“I spent the last 25 years inventing the web, promoting it and, most recently, defending it,” said Lee.
Currently, 40 per cent of the world has access to the web, which means the majority of people are still not connected.
Sir Tim and the co-founder of the online encyclopedia Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales, received the Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Knowledge Award of $1 million during the opening ceremony of the conference.
The ceremony was attended by His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, and Shaikh Ahmad Bin Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Chairman of MohammAd Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation.
Shaikh Mohammad congratulated the award winners. He also welcomed the participants in the UAE and emphasised the importance of these international gatherings that gathe under its umbrella the best experts, researchers, and scientists that have made effective contributions in the IT and knowledge sectors. He also added that the world has become a smaller place due to social, human and cultural communications between all people more than ever before which instils a culture of peace and harmony.
Being the first of its kind in the region, the conference held under the theme ‘Empowering Future Generations’, will continue till December 9 at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Dubai. The event is hosting prominent knowledge influencers and experts from around the world.
Wales, who also discussed the use of the web to access and spread knowledge, pointed out that there are currently around 32 million articles in 281 languages available on Wikipedia. He explained that the website aims to become a storehouse of knowledge available to every single person on the planet.
With 550 million users a month, the website is also the biggest encyclopaedia in the history of the Arabic language with 341,000 articles written in Arabic.
Other notable speakers who will take part in the three-day event include Hussain Lootah, director-general of Dubai Municipality, Dr Lana Mamcg, Jordan’s Minister of Culture, and Ziad Al Drees, Saudi ambassador to Unesco.
Organised by the Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation, the two-day-conference will address some of the most critical issues related to knowledge transfer and localisation through a variety of sessions with reference to the Arab Knowledge Report 2014.
