Finalists for the 2008 Millennium Technology Prize

The finalists for the 2008 Millennium Technology Prize have been announced at a press conference held at the Royal Academy of Engineering in London on Tuesday.

Four innovations have been shortlisted for the world's biggest technology award, the 2008 Millennium Technology Prize. The winner will be announced at a ceremony in Finland on June 11, 2008.

Names in the final list are:

Professor Alec Jeffreys from the Department of Genetics, University of Leicester, Britain, who invented DNA fingerprinting.

Professor Robert Langer, from Massachusettes Institute of Technology, Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, United States, who invented and developed innovative biomaterials for controlled drug release and tissue regeneration.

Dr. Andrew J. Viterbi, Professor Emeritus, University of Southern California, United States, who invented the Viterbi algorithm, the key building element in modern wireless and digital communications systems.

Professor Emmanuel Desurvire, Director, Physics Research Group, Thales Corporate Research & Technology, France, who, along with Dr. Randy Giles and Professor David N. Payne, invented the erbium-doped fiber amplifier which made possible the global high-capacity optical fiber network, serving as a backbone of the global information superhighway.

The Millennium Technology Prize is Finland's tribute to life-enhancing technological innovation. The prize is awarded every second year for a technological innovation that significantly improves the quality of human life, today and in the future. The world's biggest technology prize is awarded by the Technology Academy Finland, an independent foundation established by Finnish industry, in partnership with the Finnish state. The prize pool for the 2008 Millennium Technology Prize is 1.15million euros. The Winner of the Millennium Technology Prize will be awarded 800,000 euros, and the other innovations will each be awarded 115,000 euros.

The 2004 award was given to Tim Berners-Lee who revolutionized electronic communications with the invention of the World Wide Web. The 2006 award was given to Shuji Nakamura, a professor at the University of California at Santa Barbara and inventor of the high-brightness gallium nitride light-emitting diode (LED) and a blue laser.