Marconi Society names inaugural Institute Award winners

The Marconi Society announced its first Institute Award recipients on July 23, 2026, recognizing leaders in artificial intelligence, internet resilience and wireless communications. The winners will be honored at the 2026 Marconi Awards Gala & Institute Forums in San Francisco Nov. 4-6.

Why it matters: - The inaugural awards spotlight technical work with direct real-world impact in AI safety, broadband access and wireless connectivity. - The honorees represent three Marconi Society institutes focused on emerging technology that serves society. - The awards also signal where the organization sees the biggest need for leadership: responsible AI deployment, resilient internet infrastructure and wireless systems used at global scale.

What happened: - The Marconi Society announced its first Institute Award recipients on July 23, 2026. - Dr. David Bray received the Marconi Award for Excellence in Artificial Intelligence. - Dr. Pierrette Renée Dagg received the Marconi Award for Leadership in Internet Resilience. - Dr. Hamid Jafarkhani received the Marconi Award for Innovation in Wireless Communications. - The three recipients will be honored at the 2026 Marconi Institute Forums on Thursday, Nov. 5, 2026, at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco. - The full event, the 2026 Marconi Awards Gala & Institute Forums, runs Nov. 4-6, 2026, at the same venue.

The details: - The Marconi Society said nominations were judged against criteria tied to each institute's mission. - Those criteria included technical innovation, real-world impact and leadership in shaping the field's future. - The inaugural class reflects work in responsible AI deployment, community broadband research and wireless standards used in billions of devices. - John Janowiak, president and CEO of the Marconi Society, said the recipients turned technical depth into benefits for people in public health systems, unconnected communities and the standards that keep devices online. - Dr. David Bray has spent more than two decades translating advanced technology into public benefit at national scale. - Bray built the CDC's bioterrorism-response information systems and modernized 207 legacy IT systems at the FCC onto cloud infrastructure. - As executive director of the People-Centered Internet coalition, chaired by Vint Cerf, and co-chair of IEEE committees on AI standards, Bray helped build global frameworks for responsible AI governance. - Vint Cerf said Bray bridged AI advances with community-centered, non-partisan actions across the U.S. Intelligence Community, FCC, People-Centered Internet, GeoTech Commission and Stimson Center. - Dr. Pierrette Renée Dagg is director of research at Merit Network and a research associate at Michigan State University's Quello Center. - Dagg co-authored frameworks used to monitor and evaluate policy and documented community broadband champions working to close connectivity gaps in underserved regions. - Dagg's work connects technical research, policy design and grassroots practice. - Roger Blake, CEO of Merit Network, said Dagg's recognition highlights Merit’s work across advanced networking, research, education and 60 years of community service. - Dr. Hamid Jafarkhani co-invented space-time block coding, a framework that enabled reliable wireless communication over multiple antennas. - That work underlies mobile cellular networks and Wi-Fi standards used by billions of devices worldwide. - Jafarkhani's later work includes limited-feedback MIMO and reconfigurable-antenna systems. - His record includes 52 patents and more than 150 journal articles. - Lee A. Swindlehurst, distinguished professor and chair at the Samueli School of Engineering, said few researchers have contributed so broadly to the birth of mobile wireless connectivity. - For more information, visit Marconi Society. - Event participation and sponsorship inquiries go to Flora Tromelin at ftromelin@marconisociety.org or +1-480-828-6064. - The Marconi Society's LinkedIn page is here.

Between the lines: - The awards frame the Marconi Society's institute model as a way to connect research excellence with public benefit. - The honorees' careers span government systems, community broadband and wireless standards, suggesting the society is emphasizing infrastructure that affects daily life, not just academic achievement. - The inaugural class also gives the new awards immediate credibility by centering established figures with long publication, patent and policy track records.

What's next: - The Marconi Society will present the awards during its San Francisco gala and institute forums in early November. - The event is likely to serve as a broader showcase for the society's AI, internet resilience and advanced wireless institutes. - Additional participation and sponsorship activity will build toward the November program.

The bottom line: - The Marconi Society is using its first Institute Awards to recognize technology leaders whose work already shapes how people connect, compute and communicate.