Google just made the Turing Award a lot more exciting

[Xafer]

The Turing Award often described as the Nobel Prize of computing, just got a bigger reward.

Google has upped the 250.000$ given to the winner before, to a million dollars.

 

 

Maybe the award will get some more publicity after this? - At least Google will.

 

The Association for Computing Machinery's A.M. Turing Award is often called the "Nobel Prize of computing." Every year since 1966 it's been awarded to an accomplished computer scientist or engineer like Douglas Engelbart, the inventor of the computer mouse. But chances are you've never heard of the award at all, despite it being named after legendary Allied Forces code-breaker Alan Turing. That's because it's never really been that big -- no huge sponsors meant it didn't get a lot of promotion, and the annual prize was limited to a relatively modest $250,000. That's about to change with the 2014 award thanks to the largess of Google. 

- Engadget

 

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/11/13/google-turing-award/#continued

[werto165]

Well that's a million pounds that I'm never going to get. I'm pretty sure the people who are at the top of their respective field don't care about the money, they just love what they do. 

[Xafer]

Well that's a million pounds that I'm never going to get. I'm pretty sure the people who are at the top of their respective field don't care about the money, they just love what they do. 

 

I agree - but while they may not care about the money, i'm pretty sure they care about the attention to their subject, and with a stunt like this (And google behind it) they might get that attention and a lot more appreciation which they deserve.

[BallGum]

I agree - but while they may not care about the money, i'm pretty sure they care about the attention to their subject, and with a stunt like this (And google behind it) they might get that attention and a lot more appreciation which they deserve.

Also, prizes and large sums of money help legitimise industries to the eyes of the average Joe.

[Xafer]

Also, prizes and large sums of money help legitimise industries to the eyes of the average Joe.

Exactly - i think eSports is a great example of this, with the growing interest in it since LoL and such games suddenly had enormous prizes