Google raises the size of the Turing award to the Nobel level

More money means more attention to computer science, says the Internet giant

Since 1966, the Computer Engineering Association has presented the Turing Award annually. It is named after the famous informatics pioneer Alan Turing and is awarded to a person or a group of people whose contribution to the field of computer technology and computer science has had a strong and lasting effect.

This award is one of the most prestigious in the field of information technology, it is often called the computer Nobel Prize. But the size of the cash prize is very different (250 thousand dollars). For comparison: in the "Nobel", this figure began to grow from the 80s of the last century, and today in total for all winners (and there may be several) give about a million.

On Thursday, it became known that with the assistance of Google, the amount of the Turing premium is quadrupled. Now it is 1 million dollars, which puts its value on the same level as the Nobel.
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Surely this will increase the popularity of the Turing award among people far from computer science. The laureates are poorly known outside the narrow circles of scientists and geeks whose life is associated with information technology.

The laureates did not make huge fortunes, they did not create their own small technological empires, but their contribution to science is fundamental. Thanks to their solutions to the problems of mathematics, software design and electronics, today are not surprising reality of personal computers and the Internet, e-commerce, social networking services and, finally, smartphones.

The cash prize of the Alan Turing Award is traditionally provided by Intel and Google, although for some time the processor maker has stopped helping, and now the prize part has completely fallen to Google.

The vice president of design and technology issues of the world's largest search engine Stuart Feldman told how Google hopes that raising money rewards will increase worldwide fame, popularity and recognition of computer science. Computer science is the life source for this internet giant worth over $ 100 billion.

Silvio Mikali, one of the laureates of the award, encourages young professionals to dig deeper and not to waste their time on tasks that promise quick income. Today, many students drop out of higher education in favor of starting their own business. Mikali also believes that, in addition to a busy niche among the generally recognized sciences, computer science will continue to increase its influence in the coming years.

Some people lay the new principles of the organization of technology, and the rest convey these technologies to the masses. Google is a great example of this process: both of its founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, were doctors of science at Stanford University at the time of the founding of a promising startup.

Increasing the amount of the award has no opposite effect, and past winners will not receive additional money. Butler V. Lampson was awarded the Turing Award in 1992 for his work in the Xerox PARC research laboratories, where the foundations of the principles of modern personal computers were laid. Today he works in the Microsoft research department. When asked whether he was jealous of the new winners, Butler jokingly replied that he would somehow live without this money.

According to The New York Times .