The Largest Prize in the World After the Nobel Prize –

To Prof. Jacob Ziv of the Technion

The Spanish BBVA Award in Information and Communication Technologies, totaling 400,000 Euros, awarded to Prof. Ziv for “his groundbreaking innovations in data compression”

The Frontiers of Knowledge Award of the Spanish BBVA Foundation, the second largest prize after of the Nobel Prize (400,000 Euros), has been awarded to Jacob Ziv, Distinguish Research Professor Emeritus of the Technion’s Faculty of Electrical Engineering, for “his groundbreaking innovations in data compression and information theory.” The BBVA Awards recognize and encourage creative research in the basic sciences, biomedicine, ecology, information technology and economics, as well as artistic achievements in the arts and in the area of climate change. The awards are given for projects or research. The total for all the awards is 3.2 million Euros and they are given out annually in eight categories – 400,000 Euros per category.

Prof. Jacob Ziv won the Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Information and Communication Technologies for 2008. “Prof. Jacob Ziv’s groundbreaking innovations in data compression have had a deep and lasting impact on both the theory and practice of communications and information technology,” said the Foundation’s judges in their decision. “Ubiquitous in everyday life, Prof. Ziv’s contributions enable efficient storage and transmission of text, data, images, and video. Data compression technologies in computer memories, modems, software distribution and file compression techniques all rely on Prof. Ziv’s ideas and inventions. His seminal contributions to information theory have inspired generations of researchers and practitioners alike… This award recognizes the fundamental role of his work in creating technologies that widely and deeply impact on the information age.”

Lossless compression (compression without losing information), which was developed by Prof. Jacob Ziv and Prof. Abraham Lempel of the Technion, enables reproducing in its entirety information that has been transmitted or saved, thus ensuring that its quality is identical to that of the original. The Lempel-Ziv technique is the most widespread method of this kind of compression and is found in popular compression formats such as GZIP, GIF and TIFF.

Prof. Ziv, a Research Professor Emeritus in the Technion’s Faculty of Electrical Engineering, is a former President of the Israel Academy of Sciences, a member of the leading American and European scientific societies, the most important of which are the US National Academy of Sciences, the US National Academy of Engineering and the US Society of Philosophy. He is also a recipient of the International Marconi Award, named after the inventor of the radio.





Photo: Prof. Jacob Ziv