Contribution
Co-authoring RSS 1.0; inventing Markdown; co-founding Reddit; founding Demand Progress and Rootstrikers; campaigning for open access to academic research.
Bio
Aaron Hillel Swartz was a prodigious programmer and activist who helped shape the modern web—co-authoring RSS 1.0 at age 14, inventing Markdown, co-founding Reddit, and founding civic-tech groups like Demand Progress. He campaigned tirelessly for open access to knowledge until his untimely death in 2013.
Stories
1. ArsDigita Prize Winner
At age 12, Swartz won the ArsDigita Prize for non-commercial web projects, earning a trip to MIT and early recognition as a young innovator.
2. Co-authoring RSS 1.0
At 14 he contributed key XML code to the RSS 1.0 specification, standardizing how websites syndicate content.
3. Infogami and Reddit
In 2005 he co-founded Infogami, which merged with Reddit in 2006—making him one of Reddit’s original co-founders.
4. JSTOR Download Case
In January 2011, he was arrested for systematically downloading millions of academic articles from JSTOR via MIT’s network, sparking a landmark debate over open access.
5. The Internet’s Own Boy
His life and legacy were memorialized in the 2014 documentary “The Internet’s Own Boy,” which brought global attention to his work and tragic death.
