Dijkstra Prize | International Symposium on Distributed Computing

The Edsger W. Dijkstra Prize in Distributed Computing is named for Edsger Wybe Dijkstra (1930-2002), a pioneer in the area of distributed computing. His foundational work on concurrency, semaphores, mutual exclusion, deadlock, finding shortest paths in graphs, fault-tolerance, self-stabilization, among many other contributions comprises many of the pillars upon which the field of distributed computing is built. No other individual has had a larger influence on research in principles of distributed computing.The Prize is given for outstanding papers on the principles of distributed computing, whose significance and impact on the theory and/or practice of distributed computing has been evident for at least a decade. The Prize includes an award of $2000.

The Prize is sponsored jointly by the ACM Symposium on Principles of Distributed Computing (PODC) and the EATCS Symposium on Distributed Computing (DISC). This award is presented annually, with the presentation taking place alternately at ACM PODC in even years, and EATCS DISC in odd years. The winners of the Prize will share the cash award, and each winning author will be presented with a plaque. An announcement of each year’s prize recipient(s) will be included in the ACM PODC and EATCS DISC proceedings of that year, describing the paper’s lasting contributions.

The Award Committee

The winner of the Prize is selected by a committee of six members. The award committee will consist of the current PODC and DISC program chairs, the PODC program chairs from five and ten years ago, and the DISC program chairs from five and ten years ago. The award committee will be chaired alternatively by the current PODC (odd years) and DISC (even years) program chairs. If any of the two earlier PODC or DISC program chairs are unable to serve on the committee, then the current committee chair will find a replacement of similar stature. If the resulting committee consists of less than six distinct members due to one or more persons being eligible to serve on the committee in multiple roles, then the chair of the committee will select additional member(s) of similar stature so that the committee consists of six members.

Nominations and Eligibility

At least four months prior to each year’s PODC or DISC-whichever comes earlier-a Call for Nominations will be posted on the PODC and DISC mailing lists. Nominations may be made by any member of the scientific community. Each nomination must identify the paper being nominated and include a few paragraphs (approximately 200 words) justifying the nomination. Papers appearing in any conference proceedings or journal are eligible, as long as they have had a significant impact on research areas of interest within the theory of distributed computing community, and as long as the year of the original publication is at least ten years prior to the year in which the Prize is given.

Papers authored or co-authored by members of the award committee are not eligible for consideration. Members of the award committee can nominate papers. However, they must carefully consider nominations from within the community. Members of the award committee will be especially sensitive to conflict-of-interests issues if papers by former students or close colleagues are nominated. Members of the award committee cannot nominate such papers themselves.

Selection Process

Although the award committee is encouraged to consult with the distributed computing community at large, the award committee is solely responsible for the selection of the winner of the Prize. The Prize may be shared by more than one paper. All matters relating to the selection process that are not specified here are left to the discretion of the award committee.

Financing the Award

The Prize is financed with the combination of income from endowments and registration fees. Each of ACM PODC and EATCS DISC will provide an equal share of $1,000 towards the $2,000 award at least two weeks prior to the official start date of the conference at which the Prize is awarded.
The PODC share is financed with income from an endowment at ACM that is based on gifts from the ACM Special Interest Group on Algorithms and Computation Theory (SIGACT), the ACM Special Interest Group on Operating Systems (SIGOPS), the AT&T Corporation, the Hewlett-Packard Company, the International Business Machines (IBM) Corporation, the Intel Corporation, and Sun Microsystems. If the income from the endowment is insufficient to fund a year’s Prize, the Prize will be financed partially from the endowment and partially from that year’s PODC budget.
The DISC share is financed with income from an endowment at EATCS that is based on contributions from several year’s DISC budgets, and gifts from Microsoft Research, the Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, and the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación of Spain. If the income from the endowment is insufficient to fund a year’s prize, the Prize will be financed partially from the endowment and partially from that year’s DISC budget.
If either PODC or DISC is unable to produce $1,000, then the value of the Prize will be the sum of the amounts produced.
Should one party (PODC or DISC) be unable two times to produce its $1,000 share of the Prize, then the steering committee of the other party will have the option of revising the definition of the Prize and determining the venue where the Prize will be presented, unless both parties can come to a mutually agreeable resolution.
Should both parties (PODC and DISC) be unable two times to produce the respective $1,000, then the definition of the Prize will be referred to ACM and EATCS for a mutually agreeable resolution.

Past Prizes:

2023: Michael Ben-Or, David Chaum, Claude Crépea, Ivan Damgård, Shafi Goldwasse, Tal Rabin, and Avi Wigderson for:

Michael Ben-Or, Shafi Goldwasser and Avi Wigderson for “Completeness Theorems for Non-Cryptographic Fault-Tolerant Distributed Computation” in Proceedings of the 20th ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing (STOC), Chicago, Illinois, USA, May 1988, pages 1-10.
David Chaum, Claude Crépeau and Ivan Damgård for “Multiparty Unconditionally Secure Protocols” in Proceedings of the 20th ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing (STOC), Chicago, Illinois, USA, May 1988, pages 11-19.
Tal Rabin and Michael Ben-Or for “Verifiable Secret Sharing and Multiparty Protocols with Honest Majority” in Proceedings of the 21st ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing (STOC), Seattle, Washington, USA, May 1989, pages 73-85.