The Charles Babbage Premium was an annual award "for an outstanding paper on the design or use of electronic computers". [1] [2]
The award was established in 1959. [1] It was initiated by the British Institution of Radio Engineers, which became the Institution of Electronic and Radio Engineers. [3] In 1988, it merged with the Institution of Electrical Engineers (IEE), which later became the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) in 2006. Winners have been announced in journals such as Nuclear Power, [4] Electronic Engineering, [5] British Communications and Electronics, [6] and the Software Engineering Journal . [7]
The Premium was named after the mathematician Charles Babbage FRS (1791–1871), inventor of the Analytical Engine, a design for an early mechanical computer.
The IET now makes separate Premium Awards for papers in each of its journals, [8] named after the journal itself. This includes the IET Software Premium Award, the nearest equivalent to the Charles Babbage Premium Award.
Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems which use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the latter half of the 19th century after the commercialization of the electric telegraph, the telephone, and electrical power generation, distribution, and use.
Frederick Phillips Brooks Jr. was an American computer architect, software engineer, and computer scientist, best known for managing the development of IBM's System/360 family of computers and the OS/360 software support package, then later writing candidly about those experiences in his seminal book The Mythical Man-Month.
Computer engineering is a branch of electronic engineering and computer science that integrates several fields of computer science and electronic engineering required to develop computer hardware and software. Computer engineering is referred to as computer science and engineering at some universities.
The Institution of Electrical Engineers (IEE) was a British professional organisation of electronics, electrical, manufacturing, and information technology professionals, especially electrical engineers. It began in 1871 as the Society of Telegraph Engineers. In 2006, it changed its name to the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET).
The Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) is a multidisciplinary professional engineering institution. The IET was formed in 2006 from two separate institutions: the Institution of Electrical Engineers (IEE), dating back to 1871, and the Institution of Incorporated Engineers (IIE) dating back to 1884. Its worldwide membership is currently in excess of 158,000 in 153 countries. The IET's main offices are in Savoy Place in London, England, and at Michael Faraday House in Stevenage, England.
The Society of Engineers was a British learned society established in 1854. It was the first society to issue the professional title of Incorporated Engineer. It merged with the Institution of Incorporated Engineers (IIE) in 2005, and in 2006 the merged body joined with the Institution of Electrical Engineers to become the Institution of Engineering and Technology.
Telecommunications engineering is a subfield of electronics engineering which seeks to design and devise systems of communication at a distance. The work ranges from basic circuit design to strategic mass developments. A telecommunication engineer is responsible for designing and overseeing the installation of telecommunications equipment and facilities, such as complex electronic switching systems, and other plain old telephone service facilities, optical fiber cabling, IP networks, and microwave transmission systems. Telecommunications engineering also overlaps with broadcast engineering.
Electronics Letters is a peer-reviewed scientific journal published biweekly by the Institution of Engineering and Technology. It specializes in the rapid publication of short communications on all areas of electronic engineering, including optical, communication, and biomedical engineering, as well as electronic circuits and signal processing.
Douglas Taylor "Doug" Ross was an American computer scientist pioneer, and chairman of SofTech, Inc. He is most famous for originating the term CAD for computer-aided design, and is considered to be the father of Automatically Programmed Tools (APT), a programming language to drive numerical control in manufacturing. His later work focused on a pseudophilosophy he developed and named Plex.
Inspec is a major indexing database of scientific and technical literature, published by the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET), and formerly by the Institution of Electrical Engineers (IEE), one of the IET's forerunners.
The Faraday Medal is a top international medal awarded by the UK Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET). It is part of the IET Achievement Medals collection of awards. The medal is named after the famous Michael Faraday FRS, the father of electromagnetism. Faraday is widely recognized as a top scientist, engineer, chemist, and inventor. His electromagnetic induction principles have been widely used in electric motors and generators today.
The Institution of Electronic and Radio Engineers (IERE) was a professional organization for radio engineers. It was originally established in 1925 as the Institute of Wireless Technology. It renamed itself British Institution of Radio Engineers in 1941, and eventually Institution of Electronic and Radio Engineers. In 1988, it merged with the Institution of Electrical Engineers (IEE), and in another merger in 2006 became the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET).
Electronic engineering is a sub-discipline of electrical engineering which emerged in the early 20th century and is distinguished by the additional use of active components such as semiconductor devices to amplify and control electric current flow. Previously electrical engineering only used passive devices such as mechanical switches, resistors, inductors, and capacitors.
Bashir Mohammed Ali Al-Hashimi, CBE, FRS, FREng, FIEEE, FIET, FBCS is a recognised multidisciplinary global researcher with sustained and pioneering contributions to computer engineering and a prominent academic and higher education leader. He is Vice President and ARM Professor of Computer Engineering at King's College London in the United Kingdom. He was the co-founder and co-director of the ARM-ECS Research Centre, an industry-university collaboration partnership involving the University of Southampton and ARM. He is actively involved in promoting science and engineering for young people and regularly contributes to engineering higher education and skills national debates.
Stepan Lucyszyn FREng, FIEEE is a British engineer, inventor and technologist, and has been a Professor of Millimetre-wave Systems at Imperial College London, England, since 2016. He was elevated to Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) in 2014 and elected to Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (RAEng) in 2023. Lucyszyn's research has mainly focused on monolithic microwave integrated circuits (MMICs), radio frequency microelectromechnical systems, wireless power transfer (WPT), thermal infrared technologies and additive manufacturing.
Proceedings of the Institution of Electrical Engineers was a series journals which published the proceedings of the Institution of Electrical Engineers. It was originally established as the Journal of the Society of Telegraph Engineers in 1872, and was known under several titles over the years, such as Journal of the Institution of Electrical Engineers, Proceedings of the IEE and IEE Proceedings.
G. B. B. "Barrie" Chaplin was a British engineer and inventor, and professor emeritus at the University of Essex where he established the Department of Electrical Engineering Science in 1966. He was selected by IET as one of its 95 inspiring engineers and technologists of the past, present, and future and he was included in an exhibition at Savoy Place.