The International Science and Technology Foundation announced on the 21st that it has selected three individuals, including Professor Cynthia Dwork (67) from Harvard University, for the 2026 Japan Prize, which honors outstanding achievements in science and technology. Dwork was awarded in the field of 'Electronics, Information, and Communication.' Her work on the theoretical framework supporting the reliability of digital societies, including cryptocurrencies, was recognized.
The reasons for the award include the proposal of mechanisms that became the foundational technology for cryptocurrencies and the formulation of theories on personal information protection. In the field of life sciences, Professor Shizuo Shiratori (72) from Osaka University and Professor Zhi-Jiang Chen (60) from the University of Texas were also awarded. The award ceremony is scheduled to be held in Tokyo in April.
Pioneering research that supported the reliability of cryptocurrencies
Professor Dwork proposed the concept of imposing computational costs as a countermeasure against email spam in 1992. This idea later became the foundational technology of cryptocurrencies known as 'Proof of Work (PoW)', which became widespread as a mechanism to ensure the legitimacy of transactions in a decentralized ledger. He has been highly regarded for presenting a theoretical foundation that establishes reliability in an environment without trust, anticipating the evolution of the internet society since the 1990s.
PoW has been adopted in many cryptocurrency protocols such as Bitcoin, contributing to consensus formation and ensuring resistance to tampering among nodes.
Differential privacy and the ethical challenges of the digital society
The 'Differential Privacy' formulated in 2006 is a theory that mathematically defines the coexistence of big data analysis and personal information protection. This theory guarantees that statistical results do not significantly change based on the presence or absence of specific individuals' data and provides a framework for quantifying the risk of personal information leakage.
This mathematical model is important for objectively handling the trade-off between the utility of data utilization and privacy protection, and it is applied in global IT companies and government statistics such as Microsoft, Google, and NTT Docomo. Additionally, the professor is advancing research on the fairness and ethical biases of artificial intelligence (AI) and is working on mathematical responses to the ethical challenges faced by the digital society. These achievements have been recognized with the Japan International Prize.
