The board awarded the prize to computer scientist Ahto Buldas, whose series of works on theoretical fundamentals of timing has attracted worldwide attention. The citing index of his 42 scientific publications and 18 articles has exceeded 40 within the last three years - one of the best results of Estonian computer scientists.
Ahto Buldas has been doing research into problems of cryptography alongside his work on algebra and theory of graphs since 1993. He became the leader of the Cybernetica AS' working group researching into public-key infrastructure and used to belong to a committee dealing with draft legislation on electronic documents. At present, 35-year-old Ahto Buldas is working at the Tallinn Technical University as professor of data protection and at the Tartu University as associate professor of theoretical informatics, thus, by his activities, uniting the data protection expertise of both Tallinn and Tartu.
The Young Scientist Prize to the amount of 40,000 Estonian kroons is funded by entrepreneur Toomas Luman. The first Young Scientist Prize in the year 2000 went to Priit Kogerman and the last year's prize to Allen Kaasik. This time, 18 applications for the prize were submitted to the foundation's board.
Press Service of the Office of the President
Kadriorg, October 21, 2002
