Brewster Kahle
Brewster Lurton Kahle, born in New York City, New York, USA, is an American digital librarian, computer engineer, and Internet entrepreneur, known for his pioneering work in web archiving and digital information access. He is the founder of the Internet Archive, co-founder of Alexa Internet, and a key developer of WAIS (Wide Area Information Servers.
Raised in Scarsdale, New York, he is the son of Margaret Mary (Lurton) and Robert Vinton Kahle, a mechanical engineer. Kahle attended Scarsdale High School and earned a B.Sc. in Computer Science and Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1982, studying artificial intelligence under Marvin Minsky and W. Daniel Hillis.
After graduation, he worked at Thinking Machines Corporation as Lead engineer on the Connection Machine project, co-developing WAIS, an early distributed search and document retrieval system. In 1992, he co-founded WAIS, Inc. with Bruce Gilliat, later sold to AOL in 1995. In 1996, Kahle and Gilliat co-founded Alexa Internet, acquired by Amazon in 1999. That same year, he established the Internet Archive, a non-profit digital library dedicated to preserving the world's knowledge, and launched the Wayback Machine in 2001, allowing public access to archived web pages dating back to 1996.
Kahle has been a strong advocate for universal access to information, library digitization, and long-term preservation of both digital and physical media. Alongside his wife, Mary Austin, he runs the Kahle/Austin Foundation, supporting open access, free software, and information preservation projects, including storing millions of books and documents in climate-controlled facilities for future generations.
He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, the Internet Hall of Fame, and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and received an honorary doctorate from Simmons University in 2010. Throughout his career, Kahle has emphasized the importance of preserving digital information with proper metadata to support future research and historical study, advocating for large, affordable digital libraries to make knowledge widely accessible.
*Awards and Honors* Brewster Lurton Kahle has received numerous awards for his contributions to digital archiving and internet infrastructure.
2004: Paul Evan Peters Award from the Coalition of Networked Information (CNI)
2005: American Academy of Arts and Sciences
2005: Library of Congress NDIIP advisory board
2005: NSF Cyber Infrastructure advisory board
2007: Knowledge Trust Honors award recipient
2008: Robert B. Downs Intellectual Freedom Award from the University of Illinois
2008: Public Knowledge, IP3 award recipient
2009: 50 Visionaries Changing Your World, Utne Reader
2010: National Academy of Engineering
2010: Honorary Doctor of Laws, University of Alberta
2010: Zoia Horn Intellectual Freedom Award
2012: Software and Information Industry of America Peter Jackson Award (SIIA Peter Jackson Award)
2012: Inducted into the Internet Hall of Fame
2013: LITA/Library Hi Tech Award for Outstanding Communication in Library and Information Technology
2016: Fellowship of the Digital Preservation Coalition
2024: Lifetime Achievement in Building Internet Infrastructure Award from the Internet Infrastructure Coalition
Raised in Scarsdale, New York, he is the son of Margaret Mary (Lurton) and Robert Vinton Kahle, a mechanical engineer. Kahle attended Scarsdale High School and earned a B.Sc. in Computer Science and Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1982, studying artificial intelligence under Marvin Minsky and W. Daniel Hillis.
After graduation, he worked at Thinking Machines Corporation as Lead engineer on the Connection Machine project, co-developing WAIS, an early distributed search and document retrieval system. In 1992, he co-founded WAIS, Inc. with Bruce Gilliat, later sold to AOL in 1995. In 1996, Kahle and Gilliat co-founded Alexa Internet, acquired by Amazon in 1999. That same year, he established the Internet Archive, a non-profit digital library dedicated to preserving the world's knowledge, and launched the Wayback Machine in 2001, allowing public access to archived web pages dating back to 1996.
Kahle has been a strong advocate for universal access to information, library digitization, and long-term preservation of both digital and physical media. Alongside his wife, Mary Austin, he runs the Kahle/Austin Foundation, supporting open access, free software, and information preservation projects, including storing millions of books and documents in climate-controlled facilities for future generations.
He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, the Internet Hall of Fame, and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and received an honorary doctorate from Simmons University in 2010. Throughout his career, Kahle has emphasized the importance of preserving digital information with proper metadata to support future research and historical study, advocating for large, affordable digital libraries to make knowledge widely accessible.
*Awards and Honors* Brewster Lurton Kahle has received numerous awards for his contributions to digital archiving and internet infrastructure.
2004: Paul Evan Peters Award from the Coalition of Networked Information (CNI)
2005: American Academy of Arts and Sciences
2005: Library of Congress NDIIP advisory board
2005: NSF Cyber Infrastructure advisory board
2007: Knowledge Trust Honors award recipient
2008: Robert B. Downs Intellectual Freedom Award from the University of Illinois
2008: Public Knowledge, IP3 award recipient
2009: 50 Visionaries Changing Your World, Utne Reader
2010: National Academy of Engineering
2010: Honorary Doctor of Laws, University of Alberta
2010: Zoia Horn Intellectual Freedom Award
2012: Software and Information Industry of America Peter Jackson Award (SIIA Peter Jackson Award)
2012: Inducted into the Internet Hall of Fame
2013: LITA/Library Hi Tech Award for Outstanding Communication in Library and Information Technology
2016: Fellowship of the Digital Preservation Coalition
2024: Lifetime Achievement in Building Internet Infrastructure Award from the Internet Infrastructure Coalition
