ANU to play a role in shaping the future of the web

The Australian National University has been chosen as the new host of the World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C) Australian office.

In its role as host the ANU will help develop relationships with Australian technology and policy leaders and promote the implementation of W3C standards in Australia.

The WC3 is an international consortium of over 400 member organisations working to develop web standards and guidelines. It was founded in 1994 by web pioneer Tim Berners-Lee and has overseen the development of over 345 technical standards that make the web tick.

Dr Armin Haller, a lecturer at the ANU’s College of Business and Economics, will take the role of manager of the WC3 Australian Office. He said the WC3’s areas of focus align with the priorities of ANU researchers.

“The W3C is looking at broadening the web, and this is where ANU will really come into play,” he said.

“Where change is happening is in the vertical domains, and that’s really interesting to us — things like web payments, digital publishing, linked open data, [IoT] and web security — these are areas our researchers are already involved in.”

The Australian W3C office will be accordingly jointly hosted by the college and the ANU College of Engineering and Computer Science.

W3C global business development lead J Alan Bird said the ANU was selected following a thorough review of universities and non-profit organisations in Australia.

“We have determined that ANU is the right partner to help W3C succeed in advancing its mission and serving the needs of key communities in technology, research, business and industry and government sectors in Australia,” he said.

“We very much look forward to working with expert academic and professional staff from the ANU.”

Image courtesy of Max Froumentin under CC