Tim Berners-Lee, the man whose hypertext programme paved the way for the beast they call the Web, has been honoured with an award of €1m.

Sir Tim - as he is now known since his 2003 knighthood - will pick up a cheque from the Finnish Technology Award Foundation which has named the British boffin the first recipient for its biennial Millennium Technology Prize.

Pekka Tarjanne, chairman of the prize's award committee, said: "The web has significantly enhanced many people's ability to obtain information central to their lives. The web is encouraging new types of social networks, supporting transparency and democracy, and opening up novel avenues for information management and business development."

It was while working at Cern in Geneva during the early 1990s that Berners-Lee first developed a way to organise Net pages. To his credit, he never tried to gain personally from the system, preferring instead to develop the "World Wide Web" as a "channel for free expression and collaboration".

The pioneering academic currently heads the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) from his base at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. ®

Related links

The Finnish Technology Award Foundation
The Millennium Technology Prize
Tim Berners-Lee biog