Sir Tim Berners-Lee outlined his vision to radically change the way the web operates today at Gitex Technology Week in Dubai.
The original idea of a better and more connected world driven by an open web has been hijacked by powerful forces which use it for their own agendas, Berners-Lee laments.
With his team at MIT, Berners-Lee wants to solve the many shortcomings of the current web, and has created Solid, an open-source platform built to decentralise the web.
At the heart of Solid is a commitment to privacy, whose erosion has only accelerated over time, Berners-Lee says.
“The Cambridge Analytica scandal was a tipping point for a lot of people who were suddenly aware how their personal data can be misused, and misused at scale,” he says.
Solid provides users the freedom to choose where their data resides and who is allowed to access it. The platform accomplishes this by decoupling content from the application itself. By divorcing applications from the data they produce, users will be able to avoid vendor lock-in, switching between apps and personal data storage servers, without losing any data or social connections.
“Solid uses web technology in a way that gives people real control of their data,” says Berners-Lee.
Secondly, real innovation on the web has stalled, Berners-Lee says. “Despite the vastness of the internet, most people spend majority of their time on a single social platform. That has led to a near monopoly which naturally leads the slowdown in innovation,” Berners-Lee adds.
Solid encourages advancement by enabling developers to easily create new apps or improve current apps, all while reusing existing data that was created by other apps.
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