Péter Inzelt

He completed his diploma thesis at the Chemical Engineering Department, in the computer simulation group. In 1968, at the invitation of his former supervisor, he joined the Automation Research Institute (AKI) of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, as a scientific intern in the Continuous Process Control Department. He participated in the management of the atmospheric-vacuum distillation plant with a capacity of 1 million tons/year of the Danube Oil Industry Company – from 1973, in the successor institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Computer Science and Automation Research Institute (SZTAKI).

He became involved with the trade union committee operating in SZTAKI in the mid-1970s, where he later assumed the position of wage manager, and then served as secretary of the Trade Union Committee from 1985 to 1987. Due to his interest in economic and management issues, he obtained a second degree in economic engineering from the Faculty of Economics of the Budapest University of Technology (BME) in 1988.

He was the head of the scientific department at SZTAKI from 1981 and the deputy director of economics from 1987. As a head of department, in the first half of the 1980s he managed the following major projects: the network control system of the national high-pressure gas pipeline with control centers located in five different points of the country, the development of the control system of units 3-4 of the Paks Nuclear Power Plant, the development of the training simulator in Finland, and later the development of power plant-level monitoring systems.

From 1987 to 2015, he was the managing director of KF Infrastruktúra Kft., established with the financial support of the National Technical Development Committee (OMFB) and the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, until 2004. In his capacity as managing director, he prepared one of the very first domestic World Bank tenders, with which the company won a 150 million dollar loan; with the help of which the IBM computer network system was developed. Meanwhile, in 1972, he earned a higher degree in economics from Purdue University, Crannert School of Management (USA).

He was the director of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences' SZTAKI from 1993. In 1994, the institute was elected a member of the ERCIM (European Research Consortium of Informatics and Mathematics), the first of its kind in the former socialist countries, which assumed the European representation of the World Wide WEB (W3) around 2000; in 2003, SZTAKI organized the 3rd W3 congress in Budapest.

Meanwhile, he was a lecturer at the doctoral school of informatics at ELTE; he was an honorary university professor.

He was the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Secretary of the Budget Committee, Member of the Board of Directors of the Academic Research Centers, and the Scientific Committee on Automation and Computer Science. He was a member and then Chairman of the Supervisory Board of the Hungarian National Institute of Information Technology (NJSZT) between 2000 and 2016. He was a member of the Presidency of the Hungarian Innovation Association and has been a member of the Board of Trustees of the Novofer Foundation since 2011.

Awards: Officer's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Hungary (2003); Széchenyi Prize (2007); Pro Scientia Hungarica Medal of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (2014); Middle Cross of the Hungarian Order of Merit, Civil Division (2015); Neumann Prize (NJSZT, 2015).