Linus Torvalds was awarded the Millennium Technology Prize 2012

Today the names of the winners of the Millennium Technology Prize 2012 have become known - the world's largest award for achievements in the technological field, which is awarded every two years.



This year there are two winners: Dr. Shinya Yamanaka for a new method for producing induced stem cells by reprogramming somatic cells by epigenetic and Linus Torvalds for Linux.



The organizing committee noted the merits of Torvalds in creating a new open operating system, which led to the widespread use of the Linux kernel. The free availability of Linux on the Web quickly spawned a chain reaction to improve the code and develop the system, which now embodies work in the equivalent of 73,000 man-years. Today, millions of computers, smartphones, and TiVo digital video recorders work on Linux. The achievements of Linus Torvalds significantly influenced the development of collective software development, network infrastructure and openness of the World Wide Web, making it accessible to millions, if not billions, ”the jury said.



Linus Torvalds commented on the decision of the organizing committee: “Software is too important for the modern world not to be developed with open source codes. The real value of Linux is an opportunity for people and companies to add their own code on top of it. We are finally approaching the point where “data is just data” and we do not need these insane special communication channels for various types of data. ”

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Award winners will be held June 13, 2012 at a ceremony in Helsinki. The winners will share the prize pool, which this year exceeds 1 million euros.