Marconi Prize

The prize is awarded by the Marconi Society and it includes a work of sculpture. Recipients of the prize are awarded at the Marconi Society's annual symposium and gala.

Occasionally, the Marconi Society Lifetime Achievement Award is bestowed on legendary late-career individuals, recognizing their transformative contributions and remarkable impacts to the field of communications and to the development of the careers of students, colleagues and peers, throughout their lifetimes. So far, the recipients include Claude E. Shannon (2000, died in 2001), William O. Baker (2003, died in 2005), Gordon E. Moore (2005), Amos E. Joel Jr. (2009, died in 2008), Robert W. Galvin (2011, died in 2011), and Thomas Kailath (2017).

The Marconi Prize is awarded based on the candidate’s contributions in the following areas:

• The significance of the impact of the nominee’s work on widely-used technology.
• The scientific importance of the nominee’s work in setting the stage for, influencing, and advancing the field beyond the nominee’s own achievements.
• The nominee’s contributions to innovation and entrepreneurship by introducing completely new ideas, methods, or technologies. These may include forming, leading, or advising organizations, mentoring students on moving ideas from research to implementation, or fostering new industries/enabling scale implementation.
• The social and humanitarian impact of the nominee’s contributions to the design, development, and/or deployment of new communication technologies or communications public policies that promote social development and/or inclusiveness.

The Marconi Prize winners are also named as Marconi Fellows. The foundation and the prize are named after the honor of Guglielmo Marconi, a Nobel laureate and one of the pioneers of radio communications. Recipients of the Marconi Prize are also expected to pursue further creative work to advance the understanding and development of communications technology for the benefit of mankind.

Past winners of the Marconi Prize include Lawrence E. Page and Sergey Brin for the development of web search company Google, Tim Berners-Lee for his leadership and innovations in the World Wide Web, Nobel Laureate Charles K. Kao for developing fiber-optic communications, and Martin Hellman and Whitfield Diffie for their work in security - the Diffie–Hellman key exchange. The first award was given in 1975.

• List of engineering awards
• NAB Marconi Radio Awards