Monday, November 17, 2014

Google Funds Boost Turing Award to $1 Million

BY ANGELA MOSCARITOLO
NOVEMBER 14, 2014 03:20PM EST  PC Magazine

The hefty chunk of change, to be provided by Google, puts the Turing Award on par with the Nobel Prize.

Have a breakthrough computer science idea? It might just net you a cool $1 million.
The Association of Computing Machinery on Thursday announced that the prize for its annualA.M. Turing Award — generally considered the highest honor in computer science — is now $1 million, four times its previous value. The hefty chunk of change, to be provided by Google, puts the Turing Award on par with the Nobel Prize.

"The Turing Award is now funded at the monetary level of the world's most prestigious cultural and scientific awards and prizes," ACM President Alexander Wolf said in a statement. "With the generous support of Google, we can celebrate the mainstream role of computing in transforming the world and the way we communicate, conduct business, and access entertainment. We can also commemorate the pioneering, fundamental contributions of our ACM Turing Award recipients in advancing computing as a science and a profession."

The new prize amount goes into effect for the 2014 Turing Award, which will be announced early next year. The increase reflects the growing importance of computing on daily life, and is intended to raise the award's viability as the top recognition of computer scientists and engineers.

"We think it's important to recognize when people make fundamental contributions in computer science, and we want to help ACM raise awareness of these innovators and the contributions they've made to the world," Google's vice president of engineering, Stuart Feldman, said in a statement.

Launched in 1966, the Turing Award recognizes computer scientists and engineers who create the systems and underlying theoretical foundations that have advanced the information technology industry. It's named for Alan Turing, the pioneering British computer scientist regarded as the father of artificial intelligence.

The most recent Turing Award was granted to Leslie Lamport, who developed formal modeling and verification protocols that improve correctness, performance, and reliability of computer systems.

In 2012, Google honored Turing with a homepage doodle that celebrated his 100th birthday.

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