ACADEMIA

Google Joins Intel to Provide Increased Funding for Most Significant Award in Computing: The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) is today announcing that Google Inc. will join Intel Corporation to increase the funding for the ACM A.M. Turing Award and raise its visibility as the premier recognition of innovations in computing. Widely known as the ‘Nobel Prize’ of computing, the Turing Award recognizes individuals for contributions of lasting and major technical importance to the computing field. Intel has funded ACM’s Turing Award since 2002. The combination of support from Intel and Google will enable ACM to increase the cash award to $250,000, and gain greater prominence for the award winners “The Turing Award is the highest award in the field of computing science and recognizes achievements that push the boundaries of innovation. This Award is a significant contributor to ACM’s mission – to advance computing as a science and a profession,” said ACM President Stuart I. Feldman. “With the continuing financial support of Intel and the newly added contribution of funds from Google, we can significantly increase the award’s cash value to better reflect the importance and prestige of the Turing Award worldwide. These two icons of the computing field, with their respective records of advancing the hardware and software that drive this dynamic technology, are the perfect partners to help ACM elevate the profile of the Turing Award and to honor the contributions of its recipients.” Feldman is also a Vice President of Engineering at Google. "Intel is pleased to be the sponsor of ACM’s A. M. Turing Award for the past 5 years as it recognizes excellence and the highest levels of research contribution and innovation which is the heart of progress in the computing industry,” said Andrew A. Chien, Vice President and Director of Intel Research. “We welcome Google as fitting co-sponsors as both they and Intel have strong cultures of technical excellence and innovation. Their addition can only serve to increase the prestige and prominence of the award." “Google is proud to provide support for ACM’s Turing Award and its unique role in celebrating innovations in technology that benefit society,” said Vint Cerf, Google’s Chief Evangelist. “Our sponsorship reflects Google’s continuing commitment to foster innovation and facilitate advances in how the world uses information. We look forward to partnering with Intel to help ACM raise awareness of the computing community’s outstanding creativity and the contributions that drive technology breakthroughs.” Since its inception in 1966, ACM’s Turing Award has honored the computer scientists and engineers who created the systems and underlying theoretical foundations that have propelled the information technology industry. The award is named for Alan Turing, the British mathematician who articulated the mathematical foundation and limits of computing. The 2007 Turing Award will be presented at the ACM Awards Banquet in the spring of 2008. The most recent ACM A.M. Turing Award (2006) was presented to Frances Allen for contributions that fundamentally improved the performance of computer programs in solving problems, and accelerated the use of high performance computing. Other prominent Turing Award winners include Alan Kay (2003) for the development of Smalltalk and the reconceptualization of computing which contributed to the emergence of personal computing; Vint Cerf and Robert Kahn (2004) for pioneering work on the design and implementation of the Internet’s basic communications protocols; Douglas Englebart (1997), for the development of computing technologies such as the mouse and hypertext that have since become ubiquitous in modern computing systems; and Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson (1983) for the creation of the Unix operating system. For more information on the Turing Award and its recipients, see its Web site .