Putting the AIL in CSAIL: founding professor Marvin Minsky wins BBVA Award (and £400K)

This week EECS professor Marvin Minsky was honored for his work as "a founding father of artificial intelligence."

Minsky, who in 1959 co-founded the MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab that then merged into CSAIL, won the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award, which includes a cash prize of 400,000 pounds.

In the award announcement, BBVA lauded Prof. Minsky as "a founding father of the artificial intelligence field" who "is also the author of key theoretical and practical contributions in mathematics, cognitive science, robotics and philosophy." The award includes a cash prize of 400,000 pounds. 

The BBVA Foundation engages in the promotion of research, advanced training and the transmission of scientific knowledge to society at large, focusing especially on the analysis of emerging issues in five strategic areas: Environment, Biomedicine and Health, Economy and Society, Basic Sciences and Technology, and Arts and Humanities.