Linus Torvalds is in Helsinki today, vying for a million-dollar prize and a whole bunch of hometown recognition.
He’s up for the Millennium Technology Prize
— an award given out every two years by the Technology Academy Finland,
a foundation set up to — you guessed it — promote technology in
Finland.
The prize is given to inventors of “life-enhancing technological
innovation,” organizers say, and as far as many geeks are concerned, a
free version of Unix that runs on low-cost Intel processors definitely
fits that description. Torvalds’ competition: Shinya Yamanaka,
the University of California, San Francisco researcher who invented an
embryo-free method of creating stem cells for medical research.
The winner is set to be announced tomorrow. He will join the ranks of
scientists who’ve pioneered somewhat obscure but critical innovations
including DNA fingerprinting, organic light-emitting diodes, and the ARM
32-bit RISC microprocessor.
With the Millennium Technology Prize comes a dangerous-looking
silicon-tipped sculpture and a big pile of cash. The total prize pool
for this year’s award is €1.2 million, or about $1.5 million. The amount
that actually gets handed over to the winner is up to the judges,
though.
No matter who wins, Torvalds and Yamanaka “may well be talked about
for centuries to come,” said Technology Academy Finland President
Ainomaija Haarla, in a canned comment on the foundation’s website.
Not bad for someone who started his signature project from his bedroom back when he lived with his mom in Helsinki.
Torvalds lives with his family in Portland,
Oregon, but both he and Yamanaka are in Helsinki for the award
presentation. Torvalds left Finland in the late 1990s to come work in
Silicon Valley, but he’s still a pretty big celebrity in his motherland.
No comments:
Post a Comment