VinFuture Prize 2022 honors innovation for global revival and sustainable development

The VinFuture Prize 2022 awards ceremony was held on December 20 in Hanoi, to celebrate four groundbreaking scientific innovations that contribute to promoting global recovery and post-pandemic restructuring.

Speaking at the ceremony, National Assembly (NA) Chairman Vuong Dinh Hue emphasized that the context of the awards ceremony was “safety and comfort”, because Covid-19 has been almost completely controlled in Vietnam and other countries around the world.

Thereby, NA Chairman Hue agreed that with VinFuture, world scientists have a better understanding of a Vietnam that is strongly reaching out to the world.

With the theme “Reviving and Reshaping”, the VinFuture Prize 2022 aimed to find and celebrate outstanding science and technology achievements that created positive change following the pandemic and helped foster sustainable development for millions of people around the world.

The main prize of $3 million was presented to five scientists with breakthrough inventions in connecting global network technology.

Global network technology is the result of many major inventions serving humankind on the journey to development and improvement over many decades by many generations of scientists, creating a foundation for the knowledge economy and acting as launch pad for further breakthrough technologies such as artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, cloud computing, and big data. In particular, during the pandemic, global network technology became a foundation for connecting humanity, completely changing the way billions of people around the world communicate and work.

VinFuture 2022 also presented three special prizes, each worth $500,000, to scientists researching new fields, female scientists, and scientists from developing countries.

Commenting on the VinFuture Prize 2022, Professor Sir Richard Henry Friend, Chair of the VinFuture Prize Council, said it honors scientific and technological innovations that have contributed to and will continue to contribute to reimagining the world post-pandemic, demonstrating the critical role of science and technology in daily life. “I hope the award will help promote scientific research, creating more breakthroughs that have a positive impact on the community towards building a better life,” he added.

VinFuture received a large number of quality nominations, with nearly 1,000 high-quality scientific and technological research projects from 71 countries and territories on five continents; nearly double the 599 nominations received in 2021. Of those, 584 were nominated by the top 2 per cent most-cited scientists globally. Notable nominations consist of outstanding inventions in fields such as healthcare, food, the environment, and sustainable development, as well as a range of other technological innovations for all aspects of life.

All went through a rigorous assessment process conducted by the 12 members of the Pre-Screening Committee and the eleven members of the Prize Council, who are globally-renowned scientists from various fields of academia, research, and industry.

As part of the awards ceremony, VinFuture is also organizing a Sci-Tech Week from December 17-21 with inspiring academic activities for the scientific community, businesses, startups, and the public.