The Marconi Prize is an annual award recognizing achievements and advancements made in field of

communications Communication (from la, communicare, meaning "to share" or "to be in relation with") is usually defined as the transmission of information. The term may also refer to the message communicated through such transmissions or the field of inquir ...

(radio, mobile, wireless, telecommunications, data communications, networks, and Internet). The prize is awarded by the

Marconi Society The Guglielmo Marconi International Fellowship Foundation, briefly called Marconi Foundation and currently known as The Marconi Society, was established by Gioia Marconi Braga in 1974 to commemorate the centennial of the birth (April 24, 1874) of he ...

and it includes a $100,000

honorarium An honorarium is an ''ex gratia'' payment, i.e., a payment made, without the giver recognizing themselves as having any liability or legal obligation, to a person for his or her services in a volunteer capacity or for services for which fees are no ...

and a work of sculpture. Recipients of the prize are awarded at the Marconi Society's annual symposium and gala. Occasionally, the Marconi Society Lifetime Achievement Award is bestowed on legendary late-career individuals, recognizing their transformative contributions and remarkable impacts to the field of communications and to the development of the careers of students, colleagues and peers, throughout their lifetimes. So far, the recipients include Claude E. Shannon (2000, died in 2001), William O. Baker (2003, died in 2005),

Gordon E. Moore Gordon Earle Moore (born January 3, 1929) is an American businessman, engineer, and the co-founder and chairman emeritus of Intel Corporation. He is also the original proponent of Moore's law. As of March 2021, Moore's net worth is report ...

(2005),

Amos E. Joel Jr. Amos Edward Joel Jr. (March 12, 1918 – October 25, 2008) was an American electrical engineer, known for several contributions and over seventy patents related to telecommunications switching systems. Biography Joel was born in Philadelphia, ...

(2009, died in 2008),

Robert W. Galvin Robert William "Bob" Galvin (October 9, 1922 – October 11, 2011) was an American executive. He was the son of the founder of Motorola, Paul Galvin, and served as the CEO of Motorola from 1959 to 1986. Motorola career Born in Marshfield, Wiscon ...

(2011, died in 2011), and

Thomas Kailath Thomas Kailath (born June 7, 1935) is an electrical engineer, information theorist, control engineer, entrepreneur and the Hitachi America Professor of Engineering, Emeritus, at Stanford University. Professor Kailath has authored several books ...

(2017).

Criteria

The Marconi Prize is awarded based on the candidate’s contributions in the following areas: * The significance of the impact of the nominee’s work on widely-used technology. * The scientific importance of the nominee’s work in setting the stage for, influencing, and advancing the field beyond the nominee’s own achievements. * The nominee’s contributions to innovation and entrepreneurship by introducing completely new ideas, methods, or technologies. These may include forming, leading, or advising organizations, mentoring students on moving ideas from research to implementation, or fostering new industries/enabling scale implementation. * The social and humanitarian impact of the nominee’s contributions to the design, development, and/or deployment of new communication technologies or communications public policies that promote social development and/or inclusiveness.

Marconi Fellow

The Marconi Prize winners are also named as Marconi Fellows. The foundation and the prize are named after the honor of

Guglielmo Marconi Guglielmo Giovanni Maria Marconi, 1st Marquis of Marconi (; 25 April 187420 July 1937) was an Italians, Italian inventor and electrical engineering, electrical engineer, known for his creation of a practical radio wave-based Wireless telegrap ...

, a Nobel

laureate In English, the word laureate has come to signify eminence or association with literary awards or military glory. It is also used for recipients of the Nobel Prize, the Gandhi Peace Award, the Student Peace Prize, and for former music direc ...

and one of the pioneers of

radio Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmit ...

communications. Recipients of the Marconi Prize are also expected to pursue further creative work to advance the understanding and development of communications technology for the benefit of mankind.

List of Marconi Prize winners

Past winners of the Marconi Prize include

Lawrence E. Page Lawrence Edward Page (born March 26, 1973) is an American business magnate, computer scientist and internet entrepreneur. He is best known for co-founding Google with Sergey Brin. Page was the chief executive officer of Google from 1997 unt ...

and

Sergey Brin Sergey Mikhailovich Brin (russian: link=no, Сергей Михайлович Брин; born August 21, 1973) is an American business magnate, computer scientist, and internet entrepreneur, who co-founded Google with Larry Page. Brin was the ...

for the development of web search company

Google Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics. ...

Tim Berners-Lee Sir Timothy John Berners-Lee (born 8 June 1955), also known as TimBL, is an English computer scientist best known as the inventor of the World Wide Web. He is a Professorial Fellow of Computer Science at the University of Oxford and a profess ...

for his leadership and innovations in the

World Wide Web The World Wide Web (WWW), commonly known as the Web, is an information system enabling documents and other web resources to be accessed over the Internet. Documents and downloadable media are made available to the network through web se ...

, Nobel Laureate

Charles K. Kao Sir Charles Kao Kuen Charles K. Kao was elected in 1990
as a memb ...

for developing

fiber-optic communication Fiber-optic communication is a method of transmitting information from one place to another by sending pulses of infrared light through an optical fiber. The light is a form of carrier wave that is modulated to carry information. Fiber is pref ...

s, and

Martin Hellman Martin Edward Hellman (born October 2, 1945) is an American cryptologist and mathematician, best known for his involvement with public key cryptography in cooperation with Whitfield Diffie and Ralph Merkle. Hellman is a longtime contributor to th ...

and

Whitfield Diffie Bailey Whitfield 'Whit' Diffie (born June 5, 1944), ForMemRS, is an American cryptographer and mathematician and one of the pioneers of public-key cryptography along with Martin Hellman and Ralph Merkle. Diffie and Hellman's 1976 paper ''New Dire ...

for their work in security - the

Diffie–Hellman key exchange Diffie–Hellman key exchangeSynonyms of Diffie–Hellman key exchange include: * Diffie–Hellman–Merkle key exchange * Diffie–Hellman key agreement * Diffie–Hellman key establishment * Diffie–Hellman key negotiation * Exponential key exc ...

. The first award was given in 1975. 1975–1996 * 1975:

James Rhyne Killian James Rhyne Killian Jr. (July 24, 1904 – January 29, 1988) was the 10th president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, from 1948 until 1959. Early life Killian was born on July 24, 1904, in Blacksburg, South Carolina. His father w ...

* 1976:

Hiroshi Inose was a Japanese electrical engineer, known as the inventor of the Time-Slot Interchange system (TSI), which is basic to modern digital telephone switches. Inose was highly involved within his career. He held positions such as director general, ...

* 1977:

Arthur Leonard Schawlow Arthur Leonard Schawlow (May 5, 1921 – April 28, 1999) was an American physicist and co-inventor of the laser with Charles Townes. His central insight, which Townes overlooked, was the use of two mirrors as the resonant cavity to take maser ac ...

* 1978:

Edward Colin Cherry Edward is an English given name. It is derived from the Anglo-Saxon name ''Ēadweard'', composed of the elements '' ēad'' "wealth, fortune; prosperous" and '' weard'' "guardian, protector”. History The name Edward was very popular in Anglo-Sa ...

* 1979:

John Robinson Pierce John Robinson Pierce (March 27, 1910 – April 2, 2002), was an American engineer and author. He did extensive work concerning radio communication, microwave technology, computer music, psychoacoustics, and science fiction. Additionally to hi ...

* 1980:

Yash Pal Yash Pal (26 November 1926 – 24 July 2017) was an Indian scientist, educator and educationist. He was known for his contributions to the study of cosmic rays, as well as for being an institution-builder. In his later years, he became one of ...

* 1981:

Seymour Papert Seymour Aubrey Papert (; 29 February 1928 – 31 July 2016) was a South African-born American mathematician, computer scientist, and educator, who spent most of his career teaching and researching at MIT. He was one of the pioneers of artificial ...

* 1982: Arthur C. Clarke * 1983: Francesco Carassa * 1984:

Eric Albert Ash Sir Eric Albert Ash (31 January 1928 – 22 August 2021) was a British electrical engineer, past Rector of Imperial College and President of Institution of Engineering and Technology, IEE, UK. He was elected an international member of the Nat ...

* 1985: Charles Kuen Kao * 1986:

Leonard Kleinrock Leonard Kleinrock (born June 13, 1934) is an American computer scientist and a long-tenured professor at UCLA's Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science. In the early 1960s, Kleinrock pioneered the application of queueing theory ...

* 1987: Robert Wendell Lucky * 1988:

Federico Faggin Federico Faggin (, ; born 1 December 1941) is an Italian physicist, engineer, inventor and entrepreneur. He is best known for designing the first commercial microprocessor, the Intel 4004. He led the 4004 (MCS-4) project and the design group d ...

* 1989: Robert N. Hall * 1990:

Andrew J. Viterbi Andrew James Viterbi (born Andrea Giacomo Viterbi, March 9, 1935) is an American electrical engineer and businessman who co-founded Qualcomm Inc. and invented the Viterbi algorithm. He is the Presidential Chair Professor of Electrical Engineeri ...

* 1991:

Paul Baran Paul Baran (born Pesach Baran ; April 29, 1926 – March 26, 2011) was a Polish-American engineer who was a pioneer in the development of computer networks. He was one of the two independent inventors of packet switching, which is today the dom ...

* 1992:

James L. Flanagan James Loton Flanagan (August 26, 1925 – August 25, 2015) was an American electrical engineer. He was Rutgers University's vice president for research until 2004. He was also director of Rutgers' Center for Advanced Information Processing and t ...

* 1993:

Izuo Hayashi (May 1, 1922 – September 26, 2005) was a Japanese physicist. Hayashi was born in Tokyo in 1922 and graduated from the faculty of science, University of Tokyo in 1946. He worked as assistant professor at the Institute for Nuclear Research of th ...

* 1994: Robert E. Kahn * 1995:

Jacob Ziv Jacob Ziv ( he, יעקב זיו; born 1931) is an Israeli electrical engineer who, along with Abraham Lempel, developed the LZ family of lossless data compression algorithms. Biography Ziv was born in Tiberias, British mandate Palestine, on 27 ...

* 1996:

Gottfried Ungerboeck Gottfried Ungerboeck (born 15 March 1940, Vienna) is an Austrian communications engineer. Ungerboeck received an electrical engineering degree (with emphasis on telecommunications) from Vienna University of Technology in 1964, and a Ph.D. from th ...

1997–present * 1997: G. David Forney, Jr. * 1998:

Vinton G. Cerf Vinton may refer to: Places in the United States *Vinton, California * Fort Vinton, Florida *Vinton, Iowa * Vinton, Kansas * Vinton, Louisiana * Vinton, Missouri * Vinton, Nebraska, a ghost town in Valley County, Nebraska * Vinton Township, Nebrask ...

* 1999: James L. Massey * 2000:

and

* 2001:

Herwig Kogelnik Herwig Kogelnik (born June 2, 1932) is an Austrian-American electrical and optical engineer. He is best known for his fundamental contributions to the developments in laser technology, optoelectronics, photonics and lightwave communications sys ...

and

Allan Snyder Allan Whitenack Snyder (born 1942) is the director of the Centre for the Mind at the University of Sydney, Australia where he also holds the 150th Anniversary Chair of Science and the Mind. He is a co-founder of Emotiv Systems and winner of th ...

* 2002:

* 2003:

Robert Metcalfe Robert Melancton Metcalfe (born April 7, 1946) is an engineer and entrepreneur from the United States who helped pioneer the Internet starting in 1970. He co-invented Ethernet, co-founded 3Com and formulated Metcalfe's law, which describes the e ...

and Robert G. Gallager * 2004:

and

Lawrence Page Lawrence Edward Page (born March 26, 1973) is an American business magnate, computer scientist and internet entrepreneur. He is best known for co-founding Google with Sergey Brin. Page was the chief executive officer of Google from 1997 unt ...

* 2005: Claude Berrou * 2006: John M. Cioffi * 2007:

Ronald L. Rivest Ronald Linn Rivest (; born May 6, 1947) is a cryptographer and an Institute Professor at MIT. He is a member of MIT's Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) and a member of MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Inte ...

* 2008:

David N. Payne Sir David Neil Payne CBE FRS FREng (born 13 August 1944) is a British professor of photonics who is director of the Optoelectronics Research Centre at the University of Southampton. He has made several contributions in areas of optical fibre ...

* 2009:

Andrew Chraplyvy Andrew is the English form of a given name common in many countries. In the 1990s, it was among the top ten most popular names given to boys in English-speaking countries. "Andrew" is frequently shortened to "Andy" or "Drew". The word is derived ...

and Robert Tkach * 2010:

Charles Geschke Charles Matthew "Chuck" Geschke (September 11, 1939 – April 16, 2021) was an American businessman and computer scientist best known for founding the graphics and publishing software company Adobe Inc. with John Warnock in 1982, and co-creati ...

and

John Warnock John Edward Warnock (born October 6, 1940) is an American computer scientist and businessman best known for co-founding Adobe Systems Inc., the graphics and publishing software company, with Charles Geschke. Warnock was President of Adobe for ...

* 2011:

Jack Wolf Jack Keil Wolf (March 14, 1935 – May 12, 2011) was an American researcher in information theory and coding theory. Biography Wolf was born in 1935 in Newark, New Jersey, and graduated from Weequahic High School in 1952. He received his under ...

and Irwin M. Jacobs * 2012:

Henry Samueli Henry Samueli (born September 20, 1954) is an American businessman, engineer, and philanthropist. He is the co-founder of Broadcom Corporation, owner of the National Hockey League's Anaheim Ducks, and a prominent philanthropist in the Orange Co ...

* 2013: Martin Cooper * 2014: Arogyaswami Paulraj * 2015: Peter Kirstein * 2016:

Bradford Parkinson Bradford Parkinson (February 16, 1935) is an American engineer and inventor, retired United States Air Force Colonel and Emeritus Professor at Stanford University. He is best known as the lead architect, advocate and developer, with early contribu ...

* 2017: Arun Netravali * 2018: F. Thomson Leighton * 2019: Paul Kocher and

Taher Elgamal Taher Elgamal (Arabic: طاهر الجمل) (born 18 August 1955) is an Egyptian cryptographer and entrepreneur. He has served as the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of Security at Salesforce since 2013. Prior to that, he was the founder and CEO ...

* 2020: Andrea Goldsmith * 2022: Siavash Alamouti

References

External links

The Marconi Foundation website

Who Invented Radio?

Electrical and electronic engineering awards Guglielmo Marconi {{award-stub

Criteria

Marconi Fellow

List of Marconi Prize winners

See also

References

External links