World Technology Awards 2001

struanr writes: "Nature has published the winners and finalists of the World Technology Awards, which are run by the World Technology Network. "These are about those individuals whose work today will, in our opinion, create the greatest "ripple effects" in the future... in both expected and unexpected ways." There are some big names chosen here, and some glaring omissions."

Comments

List of winners

[Alien54]

Here is the quick list of winners. Quite items of note are winners Linus Torvald, and Shawn Fanning (founder of Napster)

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BIOTECHNOLOGY - Winner: Dr Craig Venter, President & CEO, Celera Genomics Inc., USA. Dr Venter was selected for his work on sequencing the human genome.

COMMERCE - Winner: Mr Linus Torvalds, Programmer, Transmeta Corp., USA. Linus Torvalds was selected for his work on Linux and the Open Source Software Paradigm.

COMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGY - Winner: Mr Robert Metcalfe, Vice-President Technology, International Data Group Inc., USA. Robert Metcalfe was selected for his work as the inventor of the Ethernet and the founder of 3Com.

DESIGN - Winner: Mr Stefano Marzano, CEO, Philips Design, Italy.

EDUCATION - Winner Dr Venkataraman Balaji, Head/Principal Scientist, International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), India.

ENERGY - Winner: Dr Paul MacCready, Chairman, AeroVironment Inc., USA. Paul MacCready was selected for his considerable work in the area of flight technology and solar-powered transport.

ENTERTAINMENT - Winner: Mr Shawn Fanning, Founder, Napster Inc., USA.

ENTREPRENEURSHIP - Winner: Mr Shawn Fanning, Founder, Napster Inc., USA.

ENVIRONMENT - Winner: Dr Geoffrey Ballard, Founder, Ballard Power Systems Inc., USA. Geoffrey Ballard was selected for his work as the founder of the leading fuel-cell manufacturer, Ballard Power Systems.

ETHICS - Winner: Dr Sharon Beder, Faculty Member, Department of Science and Technology Studies, University of Wollongong, Australia.

FINANCE - Winner: Mr Thomas Weisel, Founder and Chairman, Thomas Weisel Partners, USA.

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY - HARDWARE - Winner: Mr Gordon Moore, Chairman Emeritus, Intel Corp., USA. Gordon Moore was selected for his work at IntelCorp., which he co-founded in 1968.

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY - SOFTWARE - Winner: Prof. Olivier Faugeras, Research Director, ROBOTVIS Group Sophia-Antipolis Research Unit, INRIA, France. REALVIZ creates commercial products for the film and advertising industries, amongst others, using geometric information to reconstruct 3D scenes and co-ordinate artificial elements

LAW - Winner: Prof. Lawrence Lessig, Professor of Law, Stanford University, USA.

MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS - Winner: Mr Mark Viken, Senior Vice President, Information Technology Products Division, Sony Electronics Inc., USA.

MATERIALS - Winner: Prof. George Whitesides, Professor of Bioorganic/Physical Organic Chemistry & Materials Science, Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Harvard University, USA. George Whitesides has pioneered the development of 'soft lithography'. This microfabrication technology is having a tremendous impact in many areas of micro- and nanofabrication.

MEDIA & JOURNALISM - Winner: Mr John Markoff, Technology Correspondent, New York Times, USA.

POLICY - Winner: Prof. Christopher Freeman, Professor Emeritus, Science Policy Research Unit (SPRU), University of Sussex, UK.

SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP - Winner: Mr Agus Gunarto, Managing Program/NGO Worker, Yayasan Rona Alam (Rona Alam Foundation), Indonesia.

SPACE - Winner: Prof. Martin Sweeting, Director, Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL), Surrey Space Centre, UK. Since 1979, Professor Sweeting's team at the University of Surrey has pioneered engineering techniques for small satellites and has developed a series of highly capable, yet inexpensive micro-satellites, built for around US$3 million each.

THE ARTS - Winner: Mrs. Steina Vasulka, Artist, Art and Science Laboratory, USA & Mr Woody Vasulka, Artist, Art and Science Laboratory, USA.

TRANSPORTATION - Winner: Governor Jaime Lerner, Governor of Paraná, Brazil.