Rhonda Serong --
The self-taught owner of the web site
O.N.Z.C.D.A.™,
one of the oldest, most highly-decorated
and most respected web awards sites in
the world. Her site continues to
set a standard that most sites can only
hope to achieve. But this generous
New Zealander has traveled far beyond
her own excellent site in order to help
others and to raise standards of
excellence on the Internet.
Along with evaluating for
numerous other awards programs, Rhonda
generously offered to help others learn
to evaluate sites through her Evaluator
Training Program. Her interest in
ethics led to her work in helping to
create a statement of ethics for awards
programs, widely used by sites around
the world (including the site you are
now reading). She is one of the
founders of the ethics associations
CEM/CEMA (now closed) and
APEX, and currently serves as
Director of Operations for APEX.
Rhonda also helped to
relaunch the
WebsAwardsawards-rating index,
and is now the sole owner. She
continues to be a very active presence
on the Internet, striving to raise its
standards and to make it a better place.
David Bancroft --
Owner and founder of
Award Sites!, the world's first
awards-rating index, in 1997. Prior to
that time, there were many web awards
available (many of dubious quality and
significance). The indices which existed
typically listed awards alphabetically.
David's index was the first which demanded
that its programs meet certain standards of
quality in order to be listed. These
programs were then permitted to display
AS! badges indicating their rating (1.0
to 5.0, with 5.0 indicating the highest
quality programs).
Awards that were highly
rated by AS! began to be respected
and in high demand, as they are today.
There have been changes to the rating system
and criteria over the years. Other
awards-rating indices have appeared -- some
have done well, some were short-lived.
Controversies about AS! and its
system have emerged on occasion. But
AS! has survived. Awards
programs still strive to meet AS!
standards of quality. Awards seekers
still strive to meet the standards of the
highly-rated programs, resulting in the
improvement of thousands of web sites around
the world. David Bancroft was the
pioneer in this area.
Sir Tim Berners-Lee --
Inventor of the World Wide Web. His
decision to make it open and freely
available is one of the greatest gifts the
world has ever received, making it possible
for people around the globe to exchange
information and grow closer.
Sir Berners-Lee also
created the world's first web browser (WorldWideWeb),
the first web server (httpd), and the first
web site ever on line, and was the primary
author of the URL, HTTP and HTML
specifications. In 1994, he founded
the
World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and
serves as its
Director.
He is currently a Senior
Research Scientist at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology and a Chair of
Computer Science at the University of
Southampton's School of Electronics and
Computer Science Department. His list
of honors and awards is long, and very much
deserved. (Awarded 11/11/05)
Denny Lancaster --
Webmaster of Lancaster's Laughing Place, the home
of the Talking Hands Award. Denny has
tirelessly worked on the Internet to advance
web design that is W3C compliant and
accessible to those with disabilities.
The efforts of this one man have transformed
the entire world of web awards with respect to
accessibility. Denny has also persuaded
many to be involved in the United Devices
Cancer Research Project at
grid.org, which utilizes unused CPU time
for cancer research. (Awarded 7/24/04)
Bill Darling
-- Webmaster of the Critical Mass Award,
one of the earliest and longest-running
award programs on the Web. The award is
still present on many web sites around the
world. (Awarded 6/1/04, posthumously.)
