The entire World Wide Web once lived inside a single black NeXT computer at CERN. A handwritten red label was taped to its casing warning people not to switch it off. At that moment, pulling the plug on one machine in Geneva could have taken down the whole Web.

Tim Berners Lee built that server. He also created HTML, HTTP, URLs, and the first Web browser. These were the bones of the thing, but its real power came from a decision. In 1993, CERN placed the Web software in the public domain. Anyone could use it, change it, or build something new with it. There was no toll at the entrance.

The result is so woven into our lives that it can be hard to remember it was invented at all. One person sitting alone in a room could suddenly follow an idea across oceans, libraries, and languages. Knowledge began to move differently.

The Web also grew into something its inventor could not fully control. Much of our private life now passes through a small number of companies. Our photographs, searches, conversations, and habits are gathered, measured, and sold. Sir Tim has spent years warning about that concentration of power and arguing for a Web that remains open and belongs to everyone.

Looking at him through the viewfinder, I kept thinking about that black computer at CERN. One box. One handwritten warning. Now billions of people pass through what began there every day.

He gave the world a way to connect, then spent the rest of his life defending the openness that made it possible.