Now just 20 candidates for 'IT Oscars' of Europe
The submissions for the 2001 European IST prize have been whittled down to the last 20 by a group of European experts. Following the initial submissions from more than 200 innovative companies and institutions from 26 countries, these 20 winners will go forward to the grand prize ceremony in Nice Acropolis on 7 November. Three final winners will receive the 'Oscar of IT' from Erkki Liikanen, European commissioner for enterprise and information society, at the event, and a cheque for 200,000 euro. This year's 20 winners are from France, Germany, Ireland, UK, Sweden, Switzerland, Norway and the Czech Republic. The range of the projects includes virtual reality software for minimally invasive surgery to speech recognition software.