The Kyoto Prize, established by Japanese businessman Kazuo Inamori, is an annual international prize awarded in three categories: Advanced Technology, Basic Science, and Arts and Philosophy. Each winner receives a diploma, a gold watch, and 50 million yen. The prize must be awarded to an individual and not a company. Past honorees include Akira Kurosawa, Jane Goodall, and Noam Chomsky.
The Kyoto Prize is an annual international prize awarded in three categories: Advanced Technology, Basic Science and Arts and Philosophy. Kazuo Inamori, a very successful Japanese businessman, who owes his fortune to a large ceramic company, developed the Kyoto Prize. On the 25th anniversary of the start of his company Kyocera, in 1984, Kazuo Inamori established the Kyoto Prize. The first prizes were awarded the following year in 1985.
Kazuo Inamori expressed the hope that the world will continue to progress through scientific innovation and spiritual research in his statements on the philosophy behind the Kyoto Prize. In this way the Kyoto Prize differs slightly from the Nobel Prize. Especially its Arts and Philosophy category, which tends to be assigned to musicians, filmmakers, or philosophers.
Each year there is a winner for each category. Each Kyoto Prize winner receives a diploma, a gold watch and 50 million yen, approximately 420,000 US dollars (USD). Each category has four fields, and nominating members of the Kyoto Prize foundation decide which field to select for consideration each year.
For Advanced Technology, the fields are Electronics, Biotechnology and Medical Technology, Materials Science and Engineering, and Information Science. For basic sciences the fields are biological sciences, mathematics, earth and planetary sciences, and life sciences. In the Art and Philosophy category the fields are Music, Art, Theater and Cinema and Thought and Ethics.
The Kyoto Prize Foundation invites distinguished members from all fields to submit nominations. These are then reviewed by three committees, who help ensure that no bias is reflected in the awards. The Kyoto Prize Executive Committee makes final recommendations to the Board of Directors, which votes on the annual awardees.
The prize must be awarded to an individual and not to a company, unlike the Nobel Prize. It can be shared if there is a split vote. However this is rare.
Past honorees include Akira Kurosawa for her pioneering work in film, Jane Goodall for her tireless study and advocacy of chimpanzees, and Noam Chomsky for her work in linguistics. The winners are mainly from the United States, Europe and Japan and some feel that some other continents are not sufficiently represented. So far, no one from Australia, South America or Africa has won a Kyoto Prize.
Protect your devices with Threat Protection by NordVPN
