Inspire: Three Questions with Sir Tim Berners-Lee

Quite some time ago I decided that I wanted to inspire a future generation of technologists and I started collecting a series of short interviews with well-known men and women in the technology industry.  This is the first of a six part series. In this interview with Sir Tim Berners-Lee at Over the Air a few years back I ask him about his childhood, what he wanted to be as he was growing up and how he came up with the concept of the world wide web.  I also asked him what his advice was to young people today looking to pursue a career in technology… Here’s what he had to say!

It is important that we share our stories about why we chose a career in technology as so few young people are now choosing it.  You may have read in newspapers and magazines about the lack of young women entering the IT profession however what you may not have notices among this conversation is that overall numbers of those entering this profession are also down.  It’s not just a women’s issue it’s an industry issue. Whilst fixing the pipeline is only part of the solution I hope that these short videos will help inspire those who once left the industry to remember what they loved about technology and computing.  Maybe some will even decide that it is time to return and give it another go. Times have moved on and if more of us move towards changing corporate IT culture we may just find that we end up with the technology industry that we all envision and want!