The tiny PC launched in 2012. Its creators hoped to introduce youngsters to coding and had modest dreams.
They beat couple other finalists, cyber-security company Darktrace and radiotherapy pioneers Vision RT, to win the Award.
Former winners of the innovation award, which has done run since 1969, including the creators of the CT (computerized tomography) scanner; the creators of the Severn Bridge; and the team at Microsoft in Cambridge that developed the Kinect motion sensor.
A small cheap PC that might encourage children to learn to code was the idea of a tiny team of scientists and Cambridge University academics.
They expected to sell a few thousand units, but sales have now crossed 14 million, and the Pi is extensively used in factories as well as in classrooms and homes.
One of the MacRobert Award judges, Dr. Frances Saunders, said a small designed team had redefined home computing.
“The Raspberry Pi team has accomplished something that mainstream multinational PC companies and leading processing chip designers not only neglected to do but failed even to find a need for,” she said.
The Raspberry Pi is presently the best-selling British computer in history. It traveled past the Amstrad and Sinclair’s ZX Spectrum some years ago, helped by the launch of an even more minimalist model the Pi Zero.
What is extraordinary is just how strong it has become in the industry, where it’s getting a place in all sorts of applications, from robotics to intelligent signage systems. This area now accounts for nearly half of all Raspberry Pi sales.
Last week, it appeared that Intel had quietly canceled three designs aimed at competing with its tiny rival in this area.
For all its financial success, the Raspberry Pi’s main mission remains education. It has lately joined with CoderDojo, making it the largest global coding teaching organization.
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