Sebastian Silbermann (@sebbie.dev)

A royal gold medal _The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences_ (IVA, the same org that selects winners for three of the Nobel prize categories) awards me a gold medal 2025 for my work on curl. This academy, established 1919 by the Swedish king Gustav V, has been awarding _great achievers_ for over one hundred years and the simple idea behind the awards is, as quoted from their website: > Gold medals are awarded every year to people who, through outstanding deeds, have contributed to creating a better society. I am of course humbled and greatly honored to have been selected as a receiver of said award this year. To be recognized as someone who **have contributed to creating a better society** , selected by top people in competition with persons of remarkable track records and achievements. Not too shabby for a wannabe-engineer like myself who did not even attend university. There have been several software and tech related awardees for this prize before, but from what I can tell I am the first Open Source person to receive this recognition by the academy. ## Justification The Academy’s justification is given in Swedish (see below) but it should be translated roughly like this: _System developer Daniel Stenberg is awarded the IVA Gold Medal for his contributions to software development, where he has been central to internet infrastructure and free software. Through his work with curl, the tool that is now used by billions of devices worldwide, he has enabled reliable and secure data transfer over the internet. Not just between programs in traditional computers, but everything from smartphones and cars, to satellites and spacecraft._ The original Swedish “motivering”: _Systemutvecklare Daniel Stenberg tilldelas IVAs Guldmedalj för sina insatser inom mjukvaruutveckling där han haft en central betydelse för internetinfrastruktur och fri programvara. Genom sitt arbete med curl, verktyget som i dag används av miljarder enheter världen över, har han möjliggjort tillförlitlig och säker dataöverföring över internet. Inte bara mellan program i traditionella datorer utan allt från smartphones och bilar, till satelliter och rymdfarkoster._ ## The ceremony The associated award ceremony when the physical medal is handed over happens this Friday at the Stockholm City Hall‘s Blue Hall, the same venue used for the annual Nobel Prize banquet. I have invited my wife and my two adult kids to participate in those festivities. ## A _second_ medal indeed Did I not already receive a gold medal? Why yes, I did eight years ago. Believe me, it does not _get old_. This is something I can get used to. But yes: it is beyond crazy to get one medal in your life. Getting _two_ is simply incomprehensible. This is also my _third_ award received within this calendar year so I completely understand if you already feel bored by my blog posts constantly banging my own drum. See European Open Source Achievement Award and Developer of the year for the two previous ones. ## The medal I wanted to include a fine high resolution image of the medal in this post, but I failed to fine one. I suppose I will just have to make a few shots by myself after Friday and do a follow-up post! https://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2025/10/21/a-royal-gold-medal/