THE inventor of the World Wide Web (www) that runs on the internet is set to visit Uganda for the very first time next month, November 2009, on his tour of Egypt, Kenya and Uganda.
According to Daniel Stern a local Internet operator here, “Sir Tim Berners-Lee is visiting Uganda on behalf of the World Wide Web Foundation, an organisation he founded to bring the benefits of the Web to more people around the world.
“The main purpose of the visit is to reconnect with the people, projects and organisations we met in the past through our participation in various international organisations and also to learn how the Web is currently being used so we can better understand the barriers and opportunities specific to each region,” Stern said.
Stern also says the Sir Tim Berners-Lee will meet stakeholders involved in the use of the Web in Uganda, grassroots developers, traditional participants in Linux User Group as an important category of people. The Linux User Group (LUG) of Uganda has set their next meeting in November in order to host Sir Tim Berners-Lee.
“Yes it is true. Sir Tim Berners-Lee will be coming to the next LUG meeting, in November,” said Reinier Battenberg a member of the Linux user group in Uganda.
To explain the excitement the visit has caused, Stern said, “We want to understand how use of the web via mobile phones or computers in Uganda has encouraged communication, collaboration and social development.”
He said The www inventor is expected to explain for example, how ICT/Mobile/Web based services in agriculture, health, or similar domains impacted Ugandan communities.
