THE TAKEDA FOUNDATION ANNOUNCES WINNERS OF THE TAKEDA AWARD 2001 TO HONOR
ACHIEVEMENTS IN ENGINEERING
Tokyo, JAPAN September 11, 2001
The Takeda Foundation has announced the winners of this year's Takeda Awards.
The Takeda Awards are presented annually to individuals who have made outstanding
achievements in creating and applying new engineering intellect and knowledge
in three fields: Social/Economic Well-Being (information and electronics),
Individual/Humanity Well-Being (life sciences), and World Environmental
Well-Being(environment). One award is given in each of these three fields.
The monetary value for each award is 100 million yen. The ceremony will
take place in December 4, 2001 in Tokyo, Japan. The technical achievement
honored by the Takeda Award 2001 Techno-Entrepreneurial Achievements for
Social/Economic Well-Being is "the origination and the advancement
of open development models for system software - open architecture, free
software and open source software." The prize is awarded jointly to
Ken Sakamura (University of Tokyo), Richard M. Stallman (Free Software
Foundation) and Linus Torvalds (Transmeta Corporation). Ken Sakamura is
honored for developing and promoting the TRON open architecture, a real-time
operating system specification for embedded systems. Richard M. Stallman
is honored for starting the free software movement and leading the development
of the GNU operating system. Linus Torvalds is honored for developing the
Linux operating system kernel by the open source process for software development.
(Awardees are listed in alphabetical order.)
The technical achievement honored by the Takeda Award 2001 Techno-Entrepreneurial
Achievements for Individual/Humanity Well-Being is "development of
a large-scale genome sequencing system by establishing 'the whole genome
shotgun strategy' that utilizes modularized data acquisition system and
high-throughput DNA sequencers." The prize is awarded jointly to Michael
W. Hunkapiller (Applied Biosystems) and J. Craig Venter (Celera Genomics).
Michael W. Hunkapiller is honored for his contribution to the development
of the automated high-throughput DNA sequencers and the promotion of the
foundation of Celera Genomics. J. Craig Venter is honored for the foundation
of Celera Genomics and the development of "the whole genome shotgun
strategy. " (Awardees are listed in alphabetical order.) The technical
achievement honored by the Takeda Award 2001 Techno-Entrepreneurial Achievements
for World Environmental Well-Being is "the development and promotion
of the Ecological Rucksacks and Material Input per Unit Service (MIPS)
concepts, as measures of the ecological stress of products and services."
The prize is awarded jointly to Friedrich Schmidt-Bleek (Factor 10 Institute)
and Ernst Ulrich von Weizsaecker (Founding President of Wuppertal Institute.)
Friedrich Schmidt-Bleek is honored for developing and promoting the Ecological
Rucksacks and Material Input per Unit Service (MIPS) concepts. Ernst Ulrich
von Weizsaecker is honored for his contribution in refining and promoting
the Ecological Rucksacks and Material Input per Unit Service (MIPS) concepts.
(Awardees are listed in alphabetical order.)
About the Takeda Award
This award shall be presented to individuals who have demonstrated outstanding
achievements in the creation and application of new engineering intellect
and knowledge. The awards shall be presented for research achievements
that began with a concern for human needs, and which have made an outstanding
contribution to the industrial technologies intended to satisfy those needs.
The Foundation has coined the term "techno-entrepreneurship"
to define activities that challenge technological frontiers through the
application of engineering intellect and knowledge. The achievements noted
above have been selected from the point of view of "techno-entrepreneurship."
About the Process of the Takeda Awards
To select the recipients of the Takeda Awards 2001, the Foundation accepted
nominations from an international group of 770 nominators. All nominations
were reviewed, then screened in the selection process. After the winners
were determined by the Selection Committee on September 3, 2001, they were
further approved by the Board of Directors on September 4, 2001. The names
of the Selection Committee members for the Takeda Award 2001 are listed
in the attached reference.
The presentation of the first set of Takeda Awards for engineering coincides
with the 100th year anniversary of the Nobel Prizes, which were inaugurated
in 1901. There are no Nobel Prizes awarded for engineering. About the Takeda
Foundation
Awarding and supporting techno-entrepreneurship is the core goal of the
Tokyo-based Takeda Foundation that was established in April 2001. In addition
to its award and research grant programs, which are being implemented on
an international basis, the Foundation is sponsoring fellowships and scholarships.
The Foundation will also conduct research and disseminate information related
to advanced measurement intellect and knowledge. Further information on
the Foundation專 activities, awards and grants is available on its website
(URL: http://www. takeda-foundation.jp).
For further information, please contact:
Junko Ikeda
The Takeda Foundation
PO Box No.33 St. Luke' s Tower 32F, 8-1 Akashi-cho,
Chuo-ku, Tokyo, 104-6591 JAPAN
PHONE: +81-3-3549-2781 FAX: +81-3-3549-2787
E-mail: ike-jun@takeda-foundation.jp |
