Bell Labs presented a custom award commissioned from Bennett Awards to Stephen Fry, the iconic comedian, actor, author, tech enthusiast and polymath. Fry received Bell Lab’s Shannon Luminary Award for his participation in the Shannon Luminary Lecture Series and Award, which explores and recognizes all topics of high impact and relevance to the future of human existence. The series consists of ten talks by the leading visionary researchers, developers, thinkers, and entrepreneurs from all fields of scientific, technological, engineering, mathematical, or related artistic endeavor. The Shannon Luminary Award is named after Claude Shannon, the father of information theory and arguably of all communications and networked systems.
Fry has appeared in over 120 film, TV and audio performances, has authored over 20 written works, and has over 12 million Twitter followers. His wit and wisdom have been read, seen or heard around the globe for multiple generations. He was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for his performance in the film Wilde, and wrote and presented the Emmy Award-winning “Stephen Fry: The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive”.
Earlier in 2017, Bennett Awards worked with Bell Labs to create a new custom award design for the Shannon Luminary Award. The hand-sculpted award design is centered on an impressionistic figure representing Claude Shannon. The figure is surrounding by objects meaningful to Shannon’s life, including an electronic mouse, a clarinet, and a unicycle. The figure is also juggling, and the balls are supported by a flowing banner that contains some of the mathematical theorems developed by Shannon.