The Guglielmo Marconi International Fellowship Foundation, briefly called Marconi Foundation and currently known as The Marconi Society, was established by

Gioia Marconi Braga Gioia Marconi Braga, daughter of Guglielmo Marconi, was the founder and chairwoman of the Marconi Foundation, now known as the Marconi Society. Born on April 10, 1916 in London, Braga was a longtime resident of Alpine, New Jersey Alpine is a b ...

in 1974 to commemorate the centennial of the birth (April 24, 1874) of her father

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 ...

. The Marconi International Fellowship Council was established to honor significant contributions in science and technology, awarding the

Marconi Prize The Marconi Prize is an annual award recognizing achievements and advancements made in field of communications (radio, mobile, wireless, telecommunications, data communications, networks, and Internet). The prize is awarded by the Marconi Society a ...

and an annual $100,000 grant to a living scientist who has made advances in communication technology that benefit mankind. Although Braga died in July 1996, the Marconi Society has continued to award the annual

and fellowship, which were first awarded in 1975. The Marconi Society also grants annual Marconi Society-Paul Baran Young Scholar Awards to young scientists who, by the time they turn 27, have made significant contributions in the fields of communication and information science. Originally, the Foundation was located at the

Aspen Institute The Aspen Institute is an international nonprofit organization founded in 1949 as the Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies. The institute's stated aim is the realization of "a free, just, and equitable society" through seminars, policy programs ...

. In 1997, it relocated, by invitation, to

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

's Fu School of Engineering and Applied Science. The organization currently is headquartered in northeastern Ohio, outside of Cleveland.

Mission

The Marconi Society is a public charity whose mission focuses on the intersection of Internet and Communications Technology (ICT) and digital inclusion advocacy. Its mission is to bring the organization's vision, expertise, and connections to support technology and digital inclusion innovators who are connecting the world. In addition to the two awards programs, the organization runs th
Celestini Program
which pairs students in STEM fields with mentors and hands-on experiential learning opportunities, coordinates partnerships to improve broadband data mapping, and operates a yearly symposium and gala to celebrate that year's awardees and present the latest research and breakthroughs in ICT.

The Marconi Prize

The Marconi Fellows are Sir Eric A. Ash (1984),

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 ...

(1991), Sir

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 ...

(2002), Claude Berrou (2005),

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 ...

(2004), Francesco Carassa (1983),

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 ...

(1998), Andrew Chraplyvy (2009),

Colin Cherry Edward Colin Cherry (23 June 1914 – 23 November 1979) was a British cognitive scientist whose main contributions were in focused auditory attention, specifically the cocktail party problem regarding the capacity to follow one conversatio ...

(1978),

John Cioffi John Mathew Cioffi (born November 7, 1956) is an American electrical engineer, educator and inventor who has made contributions in telecommunication system theory, specifically in coding theory and information theory. Best known as "the father of ...

(2006), Arthur C. Clarke (1982), Martin Cooper (2013),

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 ...

(2000),

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 du ...

(1988), James Flanagan (1992),

David Forney George David Forney Jr. (born March 6, 1940) is an American electrical engineer who made contributions in telecommunication system theory, specifically in coding theory and information theory. Biography Forney received the B.S.E. degree in el ...

, Jr. (1997), Robert G. Gallager (2003)
Andrea Goldsmith
(2020), Robert N. Hall (1989),

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 ...

(1993),

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 ...

(2000),

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, ch ...

(1976), Irwin M. Jacobs (2011), Robert E. Kahn (1994) Sir

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

(1985),

James R. 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 ...

(1975),

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 ...

(1986),

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 ...

(2001),

Robert W. Lucky Robert Wendell Lucky (January 9, 1936 – March 10, 2022) was an electrical engineer, inventor, and research manager at Bell Labs and Bell Communications Research (Bellcore). He is best known for his writings and speeches about technology, soci ...

(1987), James L. Massey (1999),

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 ...

(2003),

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 ...

(2004),

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 ...

(1980),

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 ...

(1981), Arogyaswami Paulraj (2014),

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 ...

(2008),

John R. 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 his ...

(1979),

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 ...

(2007),

Arthur L. 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 act ...

(1977),

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 ...

(2001), Robert Tkach (2009),

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 ...

(1996),

Andrew 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 ...

(1990),

Jack Keil 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 ...

(2011),

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 ...

(1995). In 2015, the prize went to

Peter T. Kirstein Peter Thomas Kirstein (20 June 1933 – 8 January 2020) was a British computer scientist who played a role in the creation of the Internet. He put the first computer on the ARPANET outside of the US and was instrumental in defining and implem ...

for bringing the internet to Europe. The first woman to win the award was Andrea Goldsmith in 2020.

The Paul Baran Young Scholar Award

Since 2008, the Marconi Society has also issued the

Young Scholar Awards, which celebrate young leaders in advanced communications technology. Recipients are Himanshu Asnani (2014 or 2015), Salman Abdul Baset (2008), Aleksandr Biberman (2010), Salvatore Campione (2013), Keun Yeong Cho (2012), Aakanksha Chowdhery (2012), Guilhem de Valicourt (2012), Felix Gutierrez (2009), Joseph Kakande (2011), Bill Ping Piu Kuo (2011), Rafael Laufer (2008), Domanic Lavery (2013), Joseph Lukens (2015), Diomidis Michalopoulos (2010), Marco Papaleo (2009), Ken Pesyna (2015), Eric Plum (2009), Yuan Shen (2010), Kiseok Song (2014), Sebastien Soudan (2009), Jay Kumar Sundararajan (2008), Kartik Venkat (2015), Eitan Yaakobi (2009), Ke Wang (2013), Yihong Wu (2011), and Hao Zou (2008), Joe Lukens (2015), Kiseok Song (2014), Alexsandr Biberman (2010), Piotr Roztocki (2020), Vikram Iyer (2020).

References

{{Reflist

External links

The Marconi Society
website Educational foundations in the United States Organizations established in 1974