po polsku   Wersja polska   Previous editions of the Prize (in Polish)     Laureates     Witold Lipski  


Since 2022 the Prize is organized by the The Kosciuszko Foundation


A brief history of Witold Lipski Award

Witold Lipski (1949-1985) was an outstanding Polish computer scientist. In his short research career, he had published a number of significant works in database theory and analysis of algorithms. He has also published (in Polish) two books ''Combinatorics for Programmers'' and (together with Wiktor Marek) ''Combinatorial Analysis''. He collaborated, among others, with outstanding computer scientists as Christos Papadimitriou and Frank Preparata, what was exceptional during the communist era. He was also the PhD advisor of Tomasz Imieliński (Rutgers University, USA) and Zbigniew Michalewicz (Adelaide University, Australia).

Witold Lipski Award was initiated by three Polish computer scientists living abroad: Krzysztof Apt, Wiktor Marek (who was Lipski's PhD supervisor at the University of Warsaw), and Mirosław Truszczyński, to commemorate his legacy. It was established in 2005, on the twentieth anniversary of Lipski's premature death, by Fundacja Rozwoju Informatyki (FRI, Polish Foundation of the Development of Computer Science), in cooperation with Polskie Stowarzyszenie dla Maszyn Liczących (Polish Association for Calculating Machines). The first chairman of the Award Committee was Andrzej Tarlecki, who held this position until 2012.

The subsequent chairmen of the Award Committee were Paweł Urzyczyn (2013-2016) and, since 2017, Leszek Pacholski. In 2013, in recognition of his multi-year engagement in the Award, Andrzej Tarlecki became the Honorary Chairman of the Committee. From the beginning until 2022, the Secretary of the Award Committee had been Daria Walukiewicz-Chrząszcz.

In the first year the Award, it was funded by contributions provided by computer scientists of Polish origin living abroad. From 2006 to 2015 it was sponsored by the company Sage. From 2016 till 2021, the award was supported by the company Atende, and from 2020 till 2021, also by Huawei. Polskie Towarzystwo Informatyczne (Polish Computer Science Society) had been, till now, the institutional sponsor of the Award. In 2021, the initiators of the Award, together with Tomasz and Celina Imieliński, proceeded to expand the Award to two categories, together with increasing the awarded monetary value in each category. New identified sponsor has donated funds to support the expanded Lipski Award. This resulted in transferring management of the Award in 2022 by FRI to Fundacja Kościuszkowska (Kościuszko Foundation).

Previous editions of the Prize (in Polish)

Laureates