VISIONARY, LIBRARIAN, INVENTOR, ENTREPRENEUR

It’s really simple. All Brewster Kahle wants to accomplish is “Universal Access to all Knowledge.” He started on that goal at M.I.T. where he studied artificial intelligence and invented WAIS (Wide Area Information Servers, Inc.) which he sold to America Online. At that time, customers included the New York Times, the Government Printing Office, The Wall Street Journal and the White House. It must have been quite a bargain since afterwards Kahle and his wife were able to establish the Kahle/Austin Foundation trust worth $45 million.

Khale was also the founder of the Internet Archive and remains today a director of the Internet archive. In 2005 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

During the height of the war against Iraq, the F.B.I. issued a secret administrative order seeking the address and the on-line activities of one of the users of the Internet Archive. Kahle balked, sued and the F.B.I. backed off.