NCSA Web Update

Exerpted from NCSA Web Update.

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The recent World Wide Web conference in Boston was the site of the innaugural presentation of the SoftQuad Web Award honoring someone "whose vision and work helped make the Web Possible." The 1995 honor was bestowed upon Dr. Douglas C. Engelbart, the inventor of the graphical user interface, shared-screen teleconferencing, context-sensitive help, and the now-ubiquitous mouse. The biographical statement distributed about Engelbart notes that he "anticipated and helped shape the computing environment in which we live and work and continues to offer direction, particularly in the area of the World Wide Web -- the most visible manifestation of his vision."

Engelbart (seated middle) is shown signing copies of Boosting Our Collective IQ, selected readings from his more than thirty-year career in organizational computing. Also signing copies is Tim Berners-Lee (seated left), the author of HTML. Looking on is the late Yuri Rubinsky, sponsor of the SoftQuad Web Award and a member of the World Wide Web Conference Committee. (Rubinsky, a writer, publisher, and software developer, died suddenly in January.) NCSA's Barbara Kucera (seated right), also a member of the conference committee, numbers the signed copies that will be sold to raise funds for the Bootstrap Institute founded by Engelbart. To order a copy, send email to info@bootstrap.org or call Mary at (510) 713-3550.