Linus Torvalds up for Millennium Technology Prize

Linux founder Linus Torvalds has been named as a finalist for the prestigious Millennium Technology Prize.

The Technology Academy of Finland named the influential open source software pioneer as one of two finalists for the biennial technology award.

He will be joined by fellow nominee and stem cell researcher Dr. Shinya Yamanaka in a June ceremony to announce the winner of the €1m prize.

If selected, Torvalds would join an elite group of researchers and engineers who have been honoured with the prize. Among those to receive the award were internet architect Sir Tim Berners-Lee and LED researcher Shuji Nakamura.

Other notable researchers to have been nominated for the prize include ARM processor developer Stephen Furber and DNA fingerprinting innovator Sir Alec Jeffreys.

"We had many worthy nominations that we deliberated over, but ultimately we narrowed it down to these two candidates who have made such a significant impact in the field of computing and stem cell research," said Technology Academy of Finland director Dr Ainomaija Haarla.

"I hope this announcement will lead to added recognition for these extraordinary scientists and the technologies that they have developed."

Widely known as the father of Linux, Torvalds began work on his open-source Unix port in 1991 while a student at the University of Helsinki.

He has overseen the growth of the platform from a research project into one of the most prevalent and successful enterprise computing platforms of all time.

"Software is too important in the modern world not to be developed through open sources," Torvalds said of his nomination.

"The real impact of Linux is as a way to allow people and companies to build on top of it to do their own thing."