‘IC Champion of Computer Science in Africa'

The Luiz André Barroso Award was established by the ACM, the world's largest educational and scientific computing society, to recognize researchers from historically underrepresented communities who have made fundamental contributions to computer science.

The award is named after Luiz André Barroso, a Brazilian computer engineer who pioneered the design of the modern data center. Barroso, who grew up in a diverse community, was a strong supporter of equal opportunity for everyone.

IC Professor Rachid Guerraoui has been announced at the first recipient of the Award for theoretical and applied contributions to distributed computing and his impactful work on promoting computer science in Africa.

Technical Contributions

Guerraoui has made groundbreaking contributions that have shaped the landscape of distributed computing, the process of making multiple computers in different locations work together to solve a common problem. A common thread that runs through Guerraoui’s work is providing principled theoretical and practical foundations for distributed computing mechanisms. His work on e-Transaction and opacity concepts has provided new insights into managing transactions in concurrent environments.

In recent years, Guerraoui has ventured into the exciting field of Byzantine Machine Learning, which seeks to implement large-scale machine learning algorithms in the presence of machine failures. This work has opened new avenues for research at the intersection of machine learning and distributed computing.

Computing in Africa

Beyond his technical contributions, Guerraoui has also been a passionate advocate for computing education in Africa. Born in Morocco, he has been committed to fostering academic excellence on the African continent.

By co-initiating EPFL’s Excellence in Africa program, for example, Guerraoui has promoted the development of junior faculty and graduate students, providing them with opportunities to excel in their research and careers. The program has benefited researchers from Rwanda, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Cameroon, South Africa, Tanzania, Tunisia, and Morocco. His involvement in the creation of the UM6P College of Computing in Morocco has further expanded access to high-quality computer science education in the region.

Additionally, Guerraoui has played a key role in fostering collaboration and exchange among African computer science researchers through the Netys conference, an exchange forum for African computing researchers who can’t easily travel to the US and Europe because of visa and financial issues.

“The ACM Awards Committee has made an excellent choice by selecting Rachid Guerraoui as the inaugural recipient of this new award,” said ACM President Yannis Ioannidis. “In the spirit of Luiz Barroso, Guerraoui’s technical achievements are wide-ranging and highly influential and like Barroso, he has been effective in finding ways to broaden participation in the field. Africa has made rapid advances in computing, but increasing the size of a skilled workforce is essential to further growth. Through several initiatives, Guerraoui is making computer science education accessible across the continent.”