The Apache Hadoop open source software project won the top prize at Thursday night's 2011 MediaGuardian Innovation Awards, the Megas.
Described by the judging panel as a "Swiss army knife of the 21st century", Apache Hadoop picked up the innovator of the year award for having the potential to change the face of media innovations.
The judges felt the project had the potential as a greater catalyst for innovation than other nominees including WikiLeaks and the iPad.
The Apache Hadoop project develops open-source software to allow companies such as Facebook and Twitter to easily process huge amounts of data.
Doug Cutting, a founder of Apache Hadoop and chief architect at Cloudera – the leading provider of Apache Hadoop-based software and services – said: "Apache Hadoop pushes data management forward by empowering enterprises to make sense of their increasingly large and diverse collections of data."
The 2011 awards were hosted by comedian and presenter Iain Lee at the Science Museum in London.
"This year's entries reflected the way that new technology is feeding creative content and vice versa" said Aleks Krotoski, TV presenter and the Guardian's Tech Weekly podcast host. "They all shared a common sense that only through innovation can we make a digital future attractive to the public."
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Comments
25 March 2011 12:38PM
So what does it do, translated from corporate-speak?
25 March 2011 12:42PM
I can't believe the Guardian awarded iHobo anything. Have you not seen anything more condescending to a group of people as that? Shameful.