Internet pioneers honored with UK prize

Five Internet pioneers have been named the first recipients of a British prize created as a companion to the Nobel prizes to raise the profile of engineering. Sir Tim Berners-Lee, Robert Kahn, Vinton Cerf, Louis Pouzin and Marc Andreessen will share the million-pound ($1.51 million) Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering, the BBC reported Monday. A selection panel for the award, which is endowed by industry and administered by an independent trust, said all had contributed to the revolution in communications created by the Internet. Berners-Lee, working with others in the late 1980s, helped develop the World Wide Web which simplified the way information could be shared on the net; Kahn and Cerf created the TCP/IP protocols that control the way data travels around the Internet; Pouzin came up with a labeling system that guided that data to the right destination, and Andreessen developed Mosaic, the first popular browser for the web. "The prize recognizes what has been a roller-coaster ride of wonderful international collaboration," Berners-Lee said. "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 honored to receive this accolade and humbled to share it with them," he told BBC News. Queen Elizabeth is scheduled to present the prize at Buckingham Palace in June.