I was president of the TokyoPC User's group and one of our officers was going on about this Internet thing. I was happy with our BBS, and thought it might be too expensive. Roger kept pushing and another member said, "The days of the bedroom BBS are over." Roger went on to set up the first public internet access company in Japan, and when the laws changed in 1994 at midnight on Jan. 1, he beat NTT (Japan's version of AT&T) to the first commercial message sent from Japan. He had mortgaged his house to get the company going, and it really paid off.

Tim Berners Lee is also heading up SOLID at MIT, tools to build a socially responsible web.