The Pirelli Internetional Award was first offered in 1996, as the first international

multimedia Multimedia is a form of communication that uses a combination of different content forms such as text, audio, images, animations, or video into a single interactive presentation, in contrast to tradit ...

competition for the communication of science & technology conducted entirely on the

internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...

. Since then, annual awards have been granted to the best multimedia presentations focussing on themes involving the diffusion of science and technology. The multimedia presentations must deal with either

physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which r ...

, chemistry, mathematics, life sciences, or the enabling information and communication technologies that empower

itself. According to

Marco Tronchetti Provera Marco Tronchetti Provera (; born 1948) is an Italian businessman. He was the chief executive officer of Pirelli & C. S.p.A. from 1992 to 2022 and its executive vice chairman since October 20, 2015. He is the chairman of Marco Tronchetti, Provera & ...

, President of the Pirelli Group, the award was established in the belief that the diffusion of social, economic and technological advances are as important as their discovery. As the name indicates, the award is sponsored by the Pirelli Corporation.

Judging

An international jury of notable people including

Nobel Prize The Nobel Prizes ( ; sv, Nobelpriset ; no, Nobelprisen ) are five separate prizes that, according to Alfred Nobel's will of 1895, are awarded to "those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind." Alfr ...

laureates reviews the top entries. With an overall budget prize of 105,000 euro (about

US$ The United States dollar (symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official ...

130,000), awards are granted in the following major categories:

, chemistry, mathematics, life sciences, and

information and communications technology Information and communications technology (ICT) is an extensional term for information technology (IT) that stresses the role of unified communications and the integration of telecommunications ( telephone lines and wireless signals) and computer ...

Award Categories

Physics

This category rewards the best multimedia works coming from the field of physics and amounts to an award of 15,000 euro.

Chemistry

This category rewards the best multimedia works coming from the field of chemistry and amounts to an award of 15,000 euro.

Mathematics

This category rewards the best multimedia work coming from the field of mathematics and amounts to an award of 15,000 euro.

Life Sciences

This category rewards the best multimedia work coming from the field of life sciences and amounts to an award of 15,000 euro.

Information and Communications Technology

This special category prize rewards those multimedia works which represent a relevant contribution to Information and Communications Technology by means of a product, process, or service, and is deemed to be of particular significance to the jury in that the Pirelli Internetional Award is predicated in large degree to contributions such as these. The Information and Communications Technology prize amounts to 15,000 euro.

Top Pirelli Prize

The Top Pirelli Prize is the supreme recognition that the international jury grants a multimedia work which best embodies the philosophy of the Pirelli Internetional Award. In fact, the Top Pirelli Prize is considered the overall winner. It amounts to an additional 10,000 euro on top of the monetary award granted in any of the five regular categories. The Top Pirelli Prize was first awarded in 2001 (five years after the inception of the Pirelli Award) to Prof. Robert C. Michelson for his work on the Entomopter, a biologically inspired insect-like aerial robot.

Past Award Winners

Winners of the Pirelli Award (First Prize for best from any institution, and Top Pirelli Prize): 1996 First Prize: Elisa Manacorda (Italy) fo
GalileoNet.it
1997 First Prize: Marco Ziegler ( Switzerland) fo
sgich1.unifr.ch/visu.html
1998 First Prize: Jurgen Renn (

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

) fo
the Institute and Museum of the History of Science
1999 First Prize: Ericsson Medialab (Sweden) fo
Warriors of the Net
2000 First Prize: Roberto Fieschi (INFM,

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

) fo
maccw.sns.it/technet
2001 First Prize and Top Pirelli Prize: Robert C. Michelson ( Georgia Institute of Technology, USA) for the Entomopter Project 2002 First Prize and Top Pirelli Prize: Howard Hughes Medical Institute (USA) fo
GVirtual Labs
2003 First Prize and Top Pirelli Prize: David Grubin Productions, Thirteen/WNET and Docstar (USA) fo
Secret Life of the Brain
2004 First Prize and Top Pirelli Prize: Patrick J. Lynch (

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Sta ...

, USA) fo
the Yale-New Haven Medical Center
2005 First Prize and Top Pirelli Prize: Roeland van der Marel and Gijs Verdoes Kleijn (

Space Telescope Science Institute The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) is the science operations center for the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), science operations and mission operations center for the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), and science operations center for the ...

, Netherlands/USA) and Educational Web Adventures (Netherlands/USA) fo
Black Holes: Gravity's Relentless Pull
2006 First Prize and Top Pirelli Prize: New Index (Norway) for th
Interactive Mobile Whiteboard
2007 First Prize and Top Pirelli Prize: Space Telescope Institute/Google (USA) fo
Google Sky

Future

In a July 2, 2008 communique, author and manager of the Pirelli Internetional Award, Massimo Armeni, announced that Pirelli would no longer be conducting the award on an annual basis, however no indication was given as to when the next competition for the award would be announced.

References

External links

Official Pirelli Award web site
Describes the purpose, categories, history, and rules for winning the Pirelli Award. (Retrieved 25 June 2014)
The Video Of Pirelli Award on YouTube
{{Pirelli & C. SpA Computer science awards Science and technology awards Pirelli