Professor John M. Cioffi (2006) Stanford University - His pioneering research and advanced modem design helped create DSL (digital subscriber line) circuits bringing broadband Internet access to hundreds of millions of people.

Professor Claude Berrou (2005) GET, École Nationale Supérieure des Télécommunications de Bretagne, France - His discovery of turbo codes opened new avenues of research that have led to modern advances in mobile telephony, satellite and radio communications.

Sergey Brin and Lawrence Page (2004) Google - Their invention of a unique search engine technology fundamentally changed the way information is retrieved, by organizing much of the world’s information and making it universally accessible.

Professor Robert G. Gallager (2003) Massachusetts Institute of Technology - His fundamental contributions to information theory and the theory of communications networks placed information theory on a sound mathematical foundation.

Dr. Robert Metcalfe (2003) Polaris Venture Partners - He helped build the early Internet and invented the Ethernet, the local-area networking standard on which he shares four patents.

Sir Tim Berners-Lee (2002) World Wide Web Consortium - He invented the World Wide Web as an Internet-based hypermedia initiative for global information sharing and wrote the first web client (browser-editor) and server in 1990.

Dr. Herwig Kogelnik (2001) AT&T Bell Laboratories - His contributions to developments in laser technology, optoelectronics, photonics and lightwave communications systems were critical to the development of optical telecommunications.

Professor Allan Snyder (2001) The Australian National University, Australia - His work became the basis of the theory on light transmission in an optical fiber, which in turn made optical fiber technology possible and has enabled millions of miles of fiber optic cable to be laid around the globe.

Professor Martin O. Hellman (Stanford University) and Dr. Whitfield Diffie (Sun Microsystems Laboratories) (2000) - They co-developed the Diffie-Hellman algorithm for key exchange—the basis of the public-key cryptography system to allow the secure transmission of information over the Internet—and helped make cryptography a legitimate area of academic research.

Professor James L. Massey (1999) Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich - He made significant advances in forward-error-correcting codes, multi-user communications and cryptographic systems and was a teacher and mentor to a generation of scientists and technologists.

Dr. Vinton G. Cerf (1998) MCI Telecommunications Corporation - His ambassadorial leadership was critical to the creation and evolution of the Internet, and together with Robert Kahn he co-invented the TCP/IP protocols and the basic architecture of the Internet.

Dr. G. David Forney, Jr. (1997) Motorola, Inc. and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA - His seminal work in the invention of the first reliable high speed modem, later adopted as an international standard, is regarded as the basis for all subsequent modem technology.

Dr. Gottfried Ungerboeck (1996) IBM Zurich Research Laboratory in Switzerland - He invented Trellis Coded Modulation, which creates an optimal way to encode the ones and zeros in analog waveforms to allow the maximum amount of data to be transmitted over an analog telephone.

Professor Jacob Ziv (1995) Technion-Israel Institute of Technology - He made significant contributions to communications and information theory, particularly his work on the Lempel-Ziv algorithm, which allows for efficient encoding.

Dr. Robert E. Kahn (1994) Corporation for National Research Initiatives - He was responsible for the system design of the ARPANET, conceived the idea of open-architecture networking and co-invented the TCP/IP protocols.

Dr. Izuo Hayashi (1993) Optoelectronics Technology Research Laboratory, Tsukuba - His pioneering contributions to optoelectronic technology included development of the first room-temperature continuous-wave semiconductor injection laser with double heterostructure, as well as highly reliable lasers for optical communication, optical memory, and other applications.

Dr. James L. Flanagan (1992) AT&T Bell Laboratories - He established and characterized acoustic processes for information exchanges among humans and between humans and machines, and made significant contributions to the development of signal coding algorithms used in telecommunications, voicemail systems, and automatic speech synthesis and recognition.

Paul Baran (1991) Novo Ventures CEO, USA - He invented packet switching, which revolutionized speed and efficiency of data transmission.

Andrew J. Viterbi (1990) QualComm, Inc. Founder, USA - His work in digital wireless communications, particularly his widely used Viterbi Algorithm used by all four international standards for digital cellular telephony, allows many users to share the same radio frequencies, thereby exponentially increasing system capacity.

Dr. Robert N. Hall (1989) General Electric Company - The semiconductor laser he developed is used in all CD and CD-ROM units, laser printers, some remote controls, and most fiber-optic communications systems.

Federico Faggin (1988) Synaptics, Inc. - He invented Self Aligned MOS Silicon Gate Technology which enabled the creation of semiconductor memories and microprocessors, and designed and co-invented the world’s first microprocessors.

Robert W. Lucky (1987) AT&T Bell Laboratories - He invented the automatically adaptive equalizer, an important advance in digital communications and the key enabler for all high speed modems today.

Professor Leonard Kleinrock (1986) University of California at Los Angeles - He contributed to the basic principles of packet switching, the technology underpinning the Internet, and directed the transmission of the first message ever to pass over the Internet.

Professor Charles Kuen Kao (1985) ITT - Dr. Kao’s contributions helped to revolutionize the use of optical fiber for communications applications in both military and civil communications. 

Professor Francesco Carassa (1983) Politecnico di Milano, Italy - He was a leader in radio frequency engineering and the first to demonstrate the feasibility of radio relay systems.

Dr. Arthur C. Clarke (1982) Massachusetts Institute of Technology - He was the first to specify in detail both the great potential and the technical requirements for using geostationary satellites for global communications and his lifetime of work promoted the benevolent use of advanced space technology

Dr. Seymour Papert (1981) Massachusetts Institute of Technology - He was a pioneer in the development of Artificial Intelligence, and a major proponent of bringing IT to classrooms to teach mathematics to children by involving them in creative experimentation and the making of social objects.

Professor Yash Pal (1980) Space Applications Centre, Indian Space Research Organizations - As the first director of the Space Applications Centre at Ahmedabad, he was a leader in applying modern communications technology to meet the needs of isolated rural Indian villagers through the use of a satellite-based direct television broadcast for education and development.

Professor John R. Pierce (1979) California Institute of Technology - He designed and was responsible for the launch of the first active communications satellite, Telstar I, and contributed significantly to advances in space and satellite communications technologies in their applications to communications.Professor Pierce died in 2002.

E. Colin Cherry (1978) Imperial College - He helped lay much of the foundation of modern information theory and explored and wrote about the totality of the concept of communications, its technology, its human dimension, its social significance, and its power to influence economic development. Professor Cherry died in 1979.

Arthur L. Schawlow (1977) Stanford University - His co-invention of the laser and his research in the fields of optical and microwave spectroscopy and nuclear quadruple resonance superconductivity contributed, among other things, to the ability to transmit huge amounts of data via optical fiber. Dr. Schawlow shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1981 and died in 1999.

Hiroshi Inose (1976) University of Tokyo, Japan - He invented the time-slot interchange system, a key technology for digital telephone switches and integrated service digital networks. He died in 2000.

James R. Killian, Jr. (1975) Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA - As the tenth president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology he led MIT's movement into the field of digital computers and information-processing. Dr. Killian died in 1988.