Image Credit: Michael Taylor
The Millennium Technology Prize is the largest technology prize in the world, presented by the President of Finland. It is awarded every two years by an independent fund from the Finnish Technology Academy as a celebration of technological innovations that contribute to the improved quality of human life and encourage sustainable development. The prize was inaugurated in 2004 and aims to steer the course of technological development to a more humane direction. The prize pool is about US$ 1.3 million with the main prize sum being 800,000 euros. Universities, research institutes, national scientific and engineering academies, and high-tech companies around the world are eligible to nominate individuals or groups for the award.
To date, it has been awarded 4 times:
- April 15, 2004: Tim Berners-Lee (UK) won the prize for inventing the World Wide Web
- June 15, 2006: Shuji Nakamura (Japan) won the prize for inventing high brightness blue and white light-emitting diodes (LEDs)
- June 11, 2008: Robert Langer (USA) won the prize for his invention of controlled drug release biomaterials
- June 09, 2010: Michael Grätzel (Switzerland) won the prize for inventing dye-sensitized solar cells
You have 2 years until the next one, so get cracking!
