OREANDA-NEWS. The NEC C&C Foundation announced that the 2013 C&C Prize will be awarded to two groups. Dr. Kazuro Kikuchi and Dr. Masataka Nakazawa will represent Group A and Prof. Vladimir Vapnik will represent Group B. Each recipient will be recognized with a certificate of merit and a plaque. Each group will also receive a cash award of ten million yen.

The C&C Prize was established in 1985 and is awarded to distinguished persons in recognition of outstanding contributions to R&D activities and pioneering work related to the integration of computers and communications technologies and the social impact of developments in these fields. This year's two recipient groups are outlined below.

The prize ceremony and acceptance speeches will be held on Wednesday, November 27 from 15:00 at the ANA InterContinental Tokyo.

In recent years, machine learning technology has become one of the significant fundamental technologies for the development of ICT (such as the realization of various Web-based services and social services, the expansion of the integration areas of ICT, and the utilization of Big Data).

Prof. Vapnik proposed a performance evaluation theory for learning models under Statistical Learning Theory (SLT) and a high-performance and practical learning model, Support Vector Machine (SVM), considered to be one of the best learning models in pattern recognition. The breakthroughs made by Prof. Vapnik were extremely significant, and he has made valuable contributions to the development of machine learning technology and the expansion of its application field.

The C&C Prize was awarded to Prof. Vapnik in recognition of the exceptional contributions his work makes to the development of today's ICT field.