Python was awarded the COMMIT/ Award for the most valuable product resulting from ICT research that is over ten years old. SIG received the ICT Milieu Award for their application energy profile register. The third award, the Nederland ICT Innovatie Award, went to Hydrologic. ICT umbrella organization Nederland ICT awards the Nationale ICT Awards annually to innovative ICT initiatives.
Python was developed in the early ‘90s by Guido van Rossum, who was at CWI at that time. According to the jury, the COMMIT/ Award is a recognition of the persistent pioneering work that resulted in worldwide use of the language today. Examples of users are Google, game producers, Walt Disney and NASA. Van Rossum continues his contributions to the development of Python to this day, now at Dropbox, previously at CWI. Dick Bulterman, Van Rossum’s group leader in the 90’s and still connected to CWI, received the award on his behalf.
SIG, founded in 2000 as a CWI spin-off company, received the ICT Milieu Award for their application that determines the energy profile of software-hardware combination. The jury’s report says: "The application energy profile register has an enormous potential (…) It makes the true cost of software use visible by coupling energy meters to hardware. It initiates a thought process. This makes it the fair winner of the ICT Milieu Award 2013."
More information:
Nederland ICT press release (in Dutch)
The History of Python (Guido van Rossum's blog)
Website SIG
Photo: CWI researcher Dick Bulterman (right) receives the COMMIT/ Award on behalf of Guido van Rossum from chairman of the jury Gerard van Oortmerssen (left). Image by Nederland ICT.
