Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel established the
that his entire estate be used to endow “prizes to those who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit to mankind.” The categories laid out in his will—physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, and peace—have remained the basis of the awards, and a prize for economics was added in 1968.
But life has changed dramatically in the 118 years since Nobel died. Since the first prize was given in 1901, the industrial era has passed and the information age is now well and truly upon us. Humanity has become an urban species, with more than half the world now living in cities, carbon pollution has pushed greenhouse gases to the highest concentrations ever recorded, and the mobile phone has become the quickest and biggest technology uptake in human history. Almost 4 billion people are now online, and since 2015, data flows have driven more global economic growth than the entire physical goods trade.
