Florence 22 May 2015, 10 AM
Sergey Brin and Larry Page, the founders of Google, have won a new Test-of-Time award for what is one of the most influential works ever published in computer science: their paper “The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine” that was presented at the World Wide Conference in Brisbane back in 1998 and introduced Google to the world.
The prize was presented at the World Wide Web Conference in Florence on May 22. Andrei Broder, a Google Distinguished Scientist, and one of the three keynote speakers at the conference accepted the glass trophies on behalf of the Google founders. Brin and Page sent a video message to the conference delegates expressing appreciation for the award.
Professor Dame Wendy Hall, Chair of the International World Wide Web Conference Committee (IW3C2) said, “It is impossible to overestimate the importance of Sergei’s and Larry’s paper in 1998. I cannot think of any scientific paper that has had such an impact on society. On any metric, the Brin and Page paper has to be the clear winner of the first award. Google changed everything, and you heard about it first at a World Wide Web Conference.”
The World Wide Web was conceived in 1989 by Tim Berners-Lee at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland. The first ever World Wide Web Conference was organized by Robert Cailliau and held at CERN in 1994. Since then the IW3C2 conference has become an annual event rotating among locations in Europe, Asia, and North- and South-America, attracting well over a thousand international delegates every year.
The WWW Conference series aims to provide the world a premier forum for discussion and debate about the evolution of the Web, the standardization of its associated technologies, and the impact of those technologies on society and culture. The conferences bring together researchers, developers, users and commercial ventures – indeed all who are passionate about the Web and what it has to offer.
The official name of the new prize is “The Seoul Test of Time Award.” It was made possible by a generous contribution from the team of computer scientists that organized the 2014 World Wide Web Conference in Seoul. “This prize will be given each year to the author, or authors of a paper, presented at a previous World Wide Web Conference, that has, as the name suggests, stood the test of time.” explained Professor Hall. “On behalf of the organizing committee I would like to thank Professor Chin-Wan Chung, who led the organization of the Seoul Conference for his generosity and foresight in setting up this award.”