A celebration of Vincent Rijmen and Joan Daemen for receiving the BBVA Frontiers of Knowledge Award for designing AES

A celebration of Vincent Rijmen and Joan Daemen for receiving the BBVA Frontiers of Knowledge Award for designing AES
Mini-symposium: COSIC Origins — Cryptography PhDs 1979 – 1997
When? Friday 26th June at 17h
Where? Departement Elektrotechniek, Kasteelpark Arenberg 10, 3001 Leuven, Belgium
About the award
We are proud to announce that Professor Vincent Rijmen (COSIC, KU Leuven, Belgium and University of Bergen, Norway) and Professor Joan Daemen (Radboud University, The Netherlands) have been awarded the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Information and Communication Technologies. The award recognizes their design of the Rijndael algorithm, which became the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) and now secures billions of digital devices worldwide, including websites, mobile phones, Wi-Fi networks, cloud storage, and financial systems.
The committee highlighted the significance of their work, noting that AES has become “an intrinsic part of everyday life” and praising their decision to make the algorithm open-source, enabling global standardization and transparency.
The algorithm’s design, based on deep mathematical and cryptographic research, has remained secure, fast, and adaptable for more than 25 years, underpinning trust in digital communication and commerce worldwide.
Rijmen and Daemen’s work illustrates the impact of fundamental research on practical technologies that affect billions of people. AES is now widely taught in computer security courses, used in industry standards, and continues to be analyzed and verified by the cryptographic community, ensuring its continued reliability and relevance.
Agenda:
Program
The program starts with a mini-symposium, followed by a reception to conclude the evening.
The five speakers all obtained their PhDs at COSIC between 1979 and 1997:
– Yvo Desmedt
Analysis of the Security and New Algorithms for Modern Industrial Cryptography, 1984
– Ingrid Verbauwhede
VLSI Design Methodologies for Application-Specific Cryptographic and Algebraic Systems, 1991
– Bart Preneel
Analysis and Design of Cryptographic Hash Functions, 1993
– Joan Daemen
Cipher and Hash Function Design. Strategies based on linear and differential cryptanalysis, 1995
– Vincent Rijmen
Cryptanalysis and Design of Iterated Block Ciphers, 1997
The symposium will be moderated by Joos Vandewalle.
Bldg: Departement Elektrotechniek, Kasteelpark Arenberg 10, Leuven, Vlaams Brabant, Belgium, 3001