Pioneer Awards 2011

Tuesday, November 15, 2011
@ Zeum (Children's Creativity Museum)
221 Fourth Street, San Francisco, CA

6:00 p.m. VIP reception
6:45 p.m. General reception
7:45 p.m. Awards ceremony

With keynote by serial entrepreneur, Ev Williams

Nominate a 2011 Pioneer

Nominations are now open for EFF’s 20th Annual Pioneer Awards, to be presented at Zeum (soon to be known as the Children's Creativity Museum) on November 15th in San Francisco. EFF established the Pioneer Awards in 1992 to recognize leaders on the electronic frontier who are extending freedom and innovation in the realm of information technology. Nominations will be open until Monday, October 17th.

What does it take to be a Pioneer? There are no specific categories, but nominees must have contributed substantially to the health, growth, accessibility, or freedom of computer-based communications. Their contributions may be technical, social, legal, academic, economic or cultural. This year’s pioneers will join an esteemed group of past award winners that includes World Wide Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee, security expert Bruce Schneier, open source advocate Mozilla Foundation, and privacy rights activist Beth Givens.

Purchase a Ticket for the 2011 Pioneer Awards Ceremony

After you nominate your favorites, we hope you will join us on November 15th to celebrate the work of this year’s winners. The celebration will include drinks, bytes, and excellent company. Tickets are available now. Learn about how you or your company can help sponsor the awards ceremony, by visiting the Pioneer Awards Sponsor Page.

The 20th Annual Pioneer Awards Ceremony keynote speaker, Ev Williams, is an American entrepreneur who has co-founded several Internet companies, including Pyra Labs (creators of Blogger) and Twitter. He was born and raised on a farm in central Nebraska. You can follow him on Twitter.

For more information about the Pioneer Awards, please contact events@eff.org or call EFF Development Associate Kellie Brownell at (415) 436-9333 ext. 113.

Past Pioneers

2010:	Steven Aftergood, James Boyle, Pamela Jones and the Groklaw Website, and Hari Krishna Prasad Vemuru
2009:	Limor "Ladyada" Fried, Harri Hursti, and Carl Malamud
2008:	Mitchell Baker, Michael Geist, and Mark Klein
2007:	Yochai Benkler, Cory Doctorow, and Bruce Schneier
2006:	Craigslist, Gigi Sohn, and Jimmy Wales
2005:	Mitch Kapor, Edward Felten, and Patrick Ball
2004:	Kim Alexander, David Dill, and Aviel Rubin
2003:	Amy Goodman, Eben Moglen, and David Sobel
2002:	Jon Johansen and Writers of DeCSS, Dan Gillmor, and Beth Givens
2001:	Bruce Ennis, Seth Finkelstein, and Stephanie Perrin
2000:	"Librarians Everywhere", Tim Berners-Lee, and Phil Agre
1999:	Jon Postel, Drazen Pantic, and Simon Davies
1998:	Linus Torvalds, Richard Stallman, and Barbara Simons
1997:	Hedy Lamarr, Johan Helsingius, and Marc Rotenberg
1996:	Robert Metcalfe, Peter Neumann, and Shabbir Safdar and Matthew Blaze
1995:	Philip Zimmermann, Anita Borg, and Willis Ware
1994:	Ivan Sutherland, Bill Atkinson, Whitfield Diffie and Martin Hellman, Murray Turoff and Starr Roxanne Hiltz, Lee Felsenstein, and the WELL
1993:	Paul Baran, Vinton Cerf, Ward Christensen, and Dave Hughes and the USENET software developers
1992:	Douglas C. Engelbart, Robert Kahn, Jim Warren, Tom Jennings, and Andrzej Smereczynski