A compilation of W3C in Japan's 30th anniversary events

Fiscal Year 2026 marks the 30th anniversary of the establishment of W3C in Japan. As part of these commemorative activities, W3C Japan held an event for W3C members in May and an exhibition for the general public in June. As the culmination of these efforts, on September 4, we hosted “Web Together,” an event for W3C members and the web developer community in Japan.

The meetup was so well-attended—with more applications than expected—that the initial capacity of 100 participants was expanded to 160. To allow registered participants to attend at their convenience, this meetup was held from 7:00 p.m. for two hours and consisted of four lightning talks and one panel discussion.

Lightning Talks

• Web: A 30-year perspective (Sakura Adachi)
• What XTML left behind (Yosuke Furukawa)
• Web and health data (Yuku Kotani)
• Web Sustainability Guidelines (Kazuhito Kidachi)

Sakura Adachi shared the insight that the web is evolving faster than expected, that compatibility is a reality, and that the future of the web is a topic of discussion among everyone.

Yosuke Furukawa noted that while the transition to XHTML —which aimed to resolve ambiguities stemming from SGML— had failed due to a lack of compatibility, lessons learned from that experience led to the transition to HTML5, which maintained backward compatibility, thereby underscoring the importance of not freezing markup conventions and specifications.

Yuku Kotani spoke about privacy-first data exchange following FHIR and semantics that extend beyond hospital systems.

Finally, Kazuhito Kidachi delivered a powerful message focused on the future of humanity and the planet, centered on the W3C Web Sustainability Guidelines.

Jxck, Satoko Takita, Jun Murai, Takeshi Natsuno

Panel Discussion: Looking back on 30 years of the web

Panelists: Jun Murai, Takeshi Natsuno, Satoko Takita, Jxck (moderator)

Themes: