Tokyo, October 27, 2014 - Rakuten, Inc. announced the winners of the Rakuten Technology Award 2014 at the Rakuten Technology Conference 2014, held on October 25, 2014.

Rakuten Technology Awards are given away in recognition of achievements that contribute to the innovation and evolution of web technology and its popularization among the general public. This year marks the 7th time the awards have been conferred. Winners were chosen by the Rakuten Technology Award Selection Committee (Chairperson: Hiroshi Mikitani, Chairman and CEO of Rakuten), which selected the individuals and organizations that contributed most to the advancement and development of technology this year.

Rakuten will continue contributing to the advancement of technology in support of Internet services through a variety of initiatives.

(Titles Omitted)

■ Gold Prize
[Winners]
Development of the Fastest Databases Engine for the Era of Very Large Database
Institute of Industrial Science, the University of Tokyo
Masaru Kitsuregawa, Kazuo Goda, Hiroyuki Yamada, and Yuto Hayamizu

Reason for the Award
As we enter the era of Big Data, much higher performance is being demanded from databases than has been in the past. This project, led by Mr. Masaru Kitsuregawa, succeeded in developing an Out of Order Database Engine (OoODE) that has 1,000 times the processing capacity of conventional ordinal type database engines. The database product from this project (made by Hitachi, Ltd.) recorded the world's first TPC-H (the database system industry standard benchmark) test result in the 100TB data size class, and is receiving international recognition. This project is also carrying out work on applications of innovative technology in a wide range of software, including software implementation based on PostgreSQL and Hadoop. Rakuten pays homage to these achievements, and holds this project's widespread contributions to IT technology development in high regard.

■ Silver Prize
[Winners]
Docker, Inc.

Reason for the Award
Docker, Inc. developed Docker, an open-source software that provides virtual application containers that are indispensable to promoting DevOps, which also leads to realizing superior Time to Market and ongoing service improvement that addresses user needs. In a complicated age when development environments for Internet services are diversifying, the question of how to make complex environment-specific implementation and configuration operations more efficient is becoming a critical matter of concern. Docker provides a running environment for independent operating systems that allows environments to be transplanted to other machines' Dockers and have applications run as is. This makes it possible for developers to concentrate on their main business-the development of applications and services-and greatly contributes to the improvement of development and maintenance operations. Rakuten holds Docker's offer of this vision that bridges and integrates environments that tend to be segmented in high regard, as well as its achievements, and looks forward to Docker's further advancements in the future.

[Winners]
Nishimochi (Author, Harurock)

Reason for the Award
The age of the Internet of Things (IoT) is at hand. While the spotlight is on the makers that expand Internet services with Google Glass, Smartwatches, and other wearable devices, as well as the use of drones in EC, Nishimochi has conveyed to readers through cartoons, in an easy to understand way, the allure and potential of electronic kits that combines IT and manufacturing. Rakuten identifies with the desire to let many people know about the wonder of electronic kits and gives a cheer of support for more series of this work.

■ Ruby Prize
[Winners]
Misfit Wearables Corporation

Reason for the Award
Recently, wearable devices and lifelog services that utilize them have been garnering attention, and there is now a demand for the development of devices that are more integrated into daily life. Misfit Wearables developed its first product, Misfit Shine, in 2012. Since then, it has actively expanded its lineup of wearable products that monitor sleep and activity, and can be made to match everyday life situations naturally. With superb wearability that causes wearers no discomfort, Misfit Wearables' products are held in high regard as game changers in the wearable device industry. Rakuten salutes Misfit Wearables' spirit of challenge, and looks forward to their further success in the future.

[Winners]
Ryutaro Yoshiba, Yusuke Ando, Naoya Ito, Yutaro Sugai, and Yuki Namikawa
Authors, A Practical Introduction to Chef: Automating Infrastructure Building Using Code

Reason for the Award
These men wrote a book that describes in detail how to introduce Chef, a piece of software for server building automation and configuration management that is used widely throughout the world and advanced the standardization and sharing of infrastructure management know-how. This book raises various examples of infrastructure building as cases of actual use, and also gives descriptions of tests and ongoing integration. The descriptions include not only Chef itself, but also mention the backgrounds behind many other technologies, including VirtualBox, Vagrant, and serverspec. The book also contributes to the pervasion of DevOps and Infrastructure as Code, which have been attracting attention in recent years as important development and operating concepts. In addition to writing this book, the authors are also introducing illustrative examples based on their experiences and working to disseminate the material in their own blogs and at conferences. Rakuten holds them in high regard for exerting a practical influence on the engineering community.

< Selection Committee >
Chairperson:              Hiroshi Mikitani, Chairman & CEO, Rakuten, Inc.
Committee Members: Hiroaki Yasutake, Senior Executive Officer and Director, Rakuten, Inc.
                                       Masaya Mori, Global Head of Rakuten Institute of Technology
                                       Yukihiro Matsumoto, Fellow, Rakuten Institute of Technology
                                       Rakuten Technology Conference Secretariat

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