THE AWARD

A Tribute to Manuel Sadosky

In recent years, Argentina has demonstrated significant, sustained growth in the software and information services sector, which has been spoken of in numerous national and international media outlets, highlighting not only the competitive production costs but also the quality of its human resources, its rooted capacity and the great access to technology.

In view of this panorama, the Cámara de Software y Servicios Informáticos de la República Argentina (CESSI), takes numerous steps in order to strengthen the conditions that underpin this growth, such as expanding the availability of skilled human resources, encourage business growth, investment in research & development and quality, the development of specific funding mechanisms and export promotion.

In this sense, CESSI considers it necessary to reward those individuals, teams and organizations that, with their work and performance, contribute to the growth of the IT Industry in Argentina in all its dimensions. For this reason, its Board of Directors decided in 2005 to create the Sadosky Awards for Argentine Intelligence, a non-profit and socio-cultural initiative whose purpose is to present the best values in the industry to the public.

Likewise, it wishes to give tribute to Manuel Sadosky (1914-2005), illustrious Argentine scientist and developer of our country’s computer science, after whom this award is named.

Sadosky Manuel symbolizes the foundations upon which a strong nation should be built. These foundations consist of an optimistic vision of the future, based on a strong belief in the talent of its people and its ability to organize themselves, to interpret the meaning of changes that ocurr in the world and to promote them "until ethics permit ", all of these characteristics based on education and the formation of Argentina’s youth.

Naturally, the most important capital of our industry is its human resources.  Our efforts consist mainly of applying the Argentine intelligence towards technological innovation and to use this innovation for economic and social development in Argentina.

Thus we believe that those who receive these honors have the necessary obligation to remember the spirit with which they are infused, that these awards are in recognition not only of the best initiatives but also this intelligence placed at the service of the information industry, in order to guide Argentina to the future that our teachers imagined and that we hope to leave to future generations.

Biography

Sadosky Manuel was born in Buenos Aires on April 13, 1914. The son of a Russian immigrant couple that arrived in the country in 1905.  He received his primary and secondary education at Escuela Normal Mariano Acosta. In 1940 he graduated from the University of Buenos Aires (UBA) with a Doctoral degreein Physics and Mathematics.  Immediately he began teaching as a professor at the UBA and the University of La Plata, however eventually left teaching career in order to continue his studies at the Henri Poincare Institute in Paris between 1946 and 1947, and the Calculus Institute of Rome in 1948, where he focused his career toward applied mathematics.

Upon his returnto Buenos Aires, he taught at the Instituto Radiotécnico – at the time an institue recently crated by the UBA and the Maritime Ministry – until 1953 when he decided to devote his time to the publishing of several books.

After 1955, he taught at the University of Buenos Aires, first in the College of Engineering and then in the College of Natural Sciences, where he became vice dean between 1957 and 1966.  At that time, the computation sciences began to be the subject of intense study at university level.

Interested in this topic, in 1960 Sadosky formed the Calculus Institute within the College of Exact Sciences and was its director between 1958 and 1956. With support from the National Research Council (CONICET), chaired by Bernardo Houssay, in 1960 introduced the first computer in this country and the first in a university in Latin America. And he also envisioned and created the  Computer Science degree.

He was forced to leave his teaching career after the infamous “Noche de los Bastones Largos” (Night of the Long Clubs).  In 1967 he moved to Uruguay where he began the Calculus Institute of Montevideo in Uruguay’s public university, Universidad de la República, where he would receive and honorary doctoral degree.

During the military dictatorship, he was exiled and worked in applied mathematics at the “Instituto Cendes de la Universidad Central de Venezuela” from 1974 to 1979.  Later he moved to Barcelona, Spain where he became connected with the “Museo de Ciencias de Barcelona” (Science Museum of Barcelona).

In 1983, he returned to Argentina where he was appointed Secretary of Science and Technology during president Raúl Alfonsín’s first term in office (1983 - 1989) and created the Latin American Graduate School of Information Technology (ESLAI). In 1985 he was appointed Professor Emeritus at the University of Buenos Aires, and remained involved participating in different committees and organizations. He died on June 18, 2005.