Magdolna Zimanyi

For decades, he worked at the Particle and Nuclear Physics Research Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (KFKI), where he was the head of the software department, and then between 1992 and 2004, he was the head of the Computer Network Center, where the activities were mainly technical and scientific calculations and database construction. During this time, the computer center transformed from a local computer center to a computer network center connected to the global network.

He was one of the defining figures in the field from the beginning of the Hungarian computer network. From 1993, he participated in the Technical Council of the National Information Infrastructure Development Program (NIIF) as a representative of KFKI, and then from 2004 as the chairman of the program's Ethics Committee; he represented the user community by developing the NIIF user regulations.

He played a decisive role in the development of the Hungarian Electronic Library (MEK), in the establishment of the technical background and its continuous expansion.

He actively helped prepare the Hungarian membership to CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research); more than a decade before the change of regime, he supported his young colleagues in working as computer technicians for one or two years in Western European physics research centers (e.g. at CERN or Forschungszentrum Jülich, Germany). In 1994, he was one of the organizers of the first Hungarian CERN School of Computing. Between 1995-2004, he was the Hungarian member of CERN's HTASC (High Energy Physics – Computing Co-ordinating Committee, Technical Advisory Sub-Committee).

His book on the LISP programming language (1989), written with Tibor Fadgyas and László Kálmán, also served as a university textbook for decades.

In the year of the launch of the ELTE Mathematics for Programming program (1972), he gave a special collegiate lecture on macroprocessors.

He was a member of the board of the Hungarian National Library of Hungary (NJSZT); from 2000 he was a member of the board of the Hungarian Electronic Library (MEK); and was a member of the Hungarian Internet Society Association (MITE).

Honors: Neumann Prize (NJSZT, 2000); Lifetime Achievement Award (NJSZT, 2009); Prometheus Medal (Eötvös Loránd Physics Society, 2011); Hungarnet Prize (Hungarnet Association, 2011).