In 2013, Leslie Lamport (www.lamport.org) from Microsoft Research received the A.M. Turing award, which equals the Nobel Prize in computer science. Lamport received the award, which comes with a prize of 250 000 US dollars, for software that coordinates distributed computing systems. In other words, Lamport was awarded for solutions, without which World of Warcraft or Bittorrent would never work.

Now aged 73, Lamport started on his career at firms such as SRI International and DEC. He created algorithms that have improved the performance and reliability of computer systems. One of his most recognised contribution is the Paxos algorithm, which plays an important role in the operation of web browsers such as Google and Bing for instance. It allows computer networks to continue working in the face of failure.

He also played an important role in the design of the logical clock protocol, which ensures that the steps in a computing process take place in the right order even if these steps are taken by different computers.