Millennium Technology Prize

This article is about the technology prize. For the math prizes, see Millennium Prize Problems.

The Millennium Technology Prize
Awarded for	Life-enhancing technological innovation
Country	Finland
Presented by	Technology Academy Finland
First awarded	2004
Official website	www.millenniumprize.fi

The Millennium Technology Prize (Finnish: Millennium-teknologiapalkinto; formerly known as the Walter Ahlström Prize) is the largest technology prize in the world. It is awarded once every two years by Technology Academy Finland, an independent fund established by Finnish industry and the Finnish state in partnership. The prize is presented by the President of Finland. It is awarded in recognition of technological innovations that contribute to the improved quality of human life and encourage sustainable development. The prize was inaugurated in 2004.

The Prize

The Prize celebrates innovations that have a favourable impact on quality of life and well-being or on sustainable development. It has been established to steer the course of technological development to a more humane direction. The objective of the Millennium Technology Prize is to highlight technical development that has a humanitarian focus, to make the work of researchers and application builders in different sectors better known, and to encourage discussion and debate between researchers, companies, and national and communal decision makers.

The Millennium Prize is awarded by Technology Academy Finland (formerly Millennium Prize Foundation and Finnish Technology Award Foundation), established in 2002 by eight Finnish organisations supporting technological development and innovation. The prize pool for the prize is about 1.1 million euros (~US$ 1.3 million) which is divided between the winner and other laureates. The main prize sum of 800,000 euros (~US$ 1 million). The Millennium Technology Prize is awarded every second year and is presented by the president of Finland. The Millennium Technology Prize is the world's largest technology award. The predecessor to the Millennium Prize was the Walter Ahlström prize.

Compared to the Nobel Prize the Millennium Prize is a technology award, whereas the Nobel Prize is a science award. Furthermore, the Nobel Prize is awarded for basic research, but the Millennium Prize may be given to a recently conceived innovation which is still being developed.

Universities, research institutes, national scientific and engineering academies and high-tech companies around the world are eligible to nominate individuals or groups for the award. In accordance with the rules of the Technology Academy Finland, a proposal concerning the winner of the Millennium Technology Prize is made to the board of the foundation by the eight-member international selection committee, and the final decision on the prize winner is made by the board.

International Selection Committee 2009–2010

• Chairman Dr. Risto Nieminen, Professor of Physics at Helsinki University of Technology and director of COMP, a National Center for Excellence in Computational Nanoscience (Finland)
• Dr. Eva-Mari Aro, Professor of Physiological Botany at University of Turku (Finland)
• Dr. Mikko Hupa, Professor and Dean of the Faculty of Technology at the Åbo Akademi University in Turku (Finland)
• Dr. Bengt Kasemo, Professor of Physics at Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg (Sweden)
• Dr. Martti Mäntylä, Professor of Information Technology at the Helsinki University of Technology (Finland)
• Dr. Konrad Osterwalder, Rector of the United Nations University and Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations (Switzerland)
• Dr. V. S. Ramamurthy, Homi Bhabha Chair Professor at the Inter-University Accelerator Center in New Delhi (India)
• Dr. Henry T. Yang, Professor and Chancellor of the University of California, Santa Barbara (USA)

Winners

Year	Inventor	Nationality	Invention	Notes
1994	Bodo Linnhoff	Germany	Helping the Environment	Inventor of Pinch Analysis, a technique for minimizing energy usage in the process industries. In its early days, the technique helped companies such as ICI and BASF to design plants that used roughly 30% less energy. As of the 1990s, Pinch Analysis became industrial standard in the oil refining and petrochemical industries.
Name changes to the Millennium Technology Prize
2004	Tim Berners-Lee	United Kingdom	World Wide Web	Inventor of the World Wide Web from United Kingdom, was announced on April 15, 2004 as the first laureate of the award. The Prize was presented to Berners-Lee at a ceremony in the Finlandia Hall in Helsinki by the President of Finland, Tarja Halonen on June 15, 2004. Selection committee studied 78 nominations from 22 countries for the 2004 prize.
2006	Shuji Nakamura	Japan (born) United States (citizen)	Blue and white LEDs	Inventor of high brightness blue and white LEDs used in lighting, computer displays and new-generation DVDs, from California, United States, was announced on June 15, 2006 as the second laureate of the award. The Prize was presented to Nakamura at a ceremony in the Helsinki Fair Centre in Helsinki by the President of Finland Tarja Halonen on September 8, 2006. Selection committee studied 109 nominations from 32 countries for the 2006 prize.
2008	Robert Langer	United States	Innovative biomaterials	Inventor of controlled drug release from the United States, was announced on June 11, 2008 as the third laureate of the award. The prize 800,000 euros was presented to Langer at a ceremony in Helsinki by the President of Finland Tarja Halonen “for his invention and development of innovative biomaterials for controlled drug release and tissue regeneration that have significantly improved human health.” The other 2008 Millennium Laureates, Alec Jeffreys and Andrew Viterbi and the group of Emmanuel Desurvire, Randy Giles and David N. Payne, were each awarded prizes of 115,000 euros.
2010	Michael Grätzel	Switzerland	Dye-sensitized solar cells	Inventor of third generation dye-sensitized solar cells. The president of Finland Tarja Halonen handed the 800,000 euros Grand Prize and the prize trophy "Peak" to Grätzel at the Grand Award Ceremony at the Finnish National Opera in Helsinki on 9 June 2010. The two other 2010 Millennium Laureates, Richard Friend and Stephen Furber, were each awarded prizes of 150,000 euros.
2012	Linus Torvalds	Finland (born) United States (citizen)	Linux kernel
	Shinya Yamanaka	Japan	Induced pluripotent stem cell

See also

• Nobel Prize
• Takeda Award
• Nevanlinna Prize
• Kyoto Prize
• Schock Prize
• List of prizes, medals, and awards

References

Websites

• "Nakamura collects Millennium Technology Prize" Helsingin Sanomat, International edition, September 11, 2006, retrieved September 14, 2006
• "Top prize for 'light' inventor" by BBC News, September 8, 2006, retrieved September 8, 2006
• "Shedding light on the world" by Jane Qui, BBC News, September 8, 2006, retrieved September 9, 2006
• "Millennium Technology Prize goes to semiconductor research" by Soili Helminen, TEKES, June 15, 2006, retrieved September 9, 2006
• "2006 Millennium Technology prize awarded to UCSB'S Shuji Nakamura" by Paul Desruisseaux, University of California, Santa Barbara, June 15, 2006, retrieved September 9, 2006
• "Berners-Lee wins inaugural technology prize" by David Legard, IDG News Service, April 16, 2004, retrieved September 9, 2006
• "New honour for the web's inventor" by BBC News, April 15, 2004, retrieved September 9, 2006

External links

• The Millennium Technology Prize - Official site
• The Millennium Technology Prize Youtube Channel
• Technology Academy Foundation - Official site