Over 900 academicians of different countries and more than 30 presidents of prestigious university participated in the nomination, recommendation, and evaluation processes of this year’s Xplorer Prize. More than 20 winners of international awards, including Nobel Prize, Turing Award, and Fields Medal, were involved in the nomination process alone. Prof Mak’s award-winning project is ‘Battery-less Intelligent Electronic Chips’, which is expected to solve two technical bottlenecks in the development of massive Internet of Things in China, namely manual battery replacement and batteries not being environmentally friendly. ‘Scientific research in Macao did not have a high starting point, but with the support of the country in various aspects and the frequent interaction with other parts of the Greater Bay Area in the past few years, we have been making rapid progress. We will continue to work hard with a focus on quality over quantity to contribute to scientific innovation in China,’ says Prof Mak.
Born and raised in Macao, Prof Mak is also currently the deputy director (research) of UM’s Institute of Microelectronics. He is a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, a fellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology, a fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, and an overseas expert of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Prof Mak is an internationally recognised expert in the field of integrated circuits, specialising in radio frequency and analog integrated circuits. He was awarded a commemorative medal for the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China and was selected as a representative on Macao’s float during the National Day Parade in 2019. In addition, he received a second prize of the State Science and Technological Progress Award in 2011 and the Certificate of Merit from the Macao SAR government in 2005, and has received six prizes in the Technological Invention Award category of the Macao Science and Technology Awards since 2012. Prof Mak is also a co-founder of Digifluidic, UM’s first start-up company based on industry-academia collaboration, which produces digital microfluidic chips and automated nucleic acid analysis systems to facilitate low-cost and rapid food safety screening and disease detection.
The Xplorer Prize was jointly initiated in 2018 by Tencent Foundation initiator Ma Huateng and 14 renowned scientists, including Chen Ning Yang, Rao Yi, Shi Yigong, Pan Jianwei, and Xie Xiaoliang. It is one of the funding schemes with high amount of sponsorships for young talent in science and technology in China. The awards cover ten areas of basic sciences and cutting-edge technology, and 200 winners have been selected over the past four years. As a scientist-led public service award, the Xplorer Prize upholds the mission of ‘looking towards the future, rewarding scholars with potential, and encouraging exploration’ through encouraging young talent to explore new frontiers in science and technology and studying the feasibility of a sustainable and stable input mechanism in society for supporting basic research and talent development.
第四屆“科學探索獎”獲獎名單今（15）日揭曉，澳門大學模擬與混合信號超大規模集成電路國家重點實驗室代主任、科技學院電機及電腦工程系教授麥沛然獲獎。在50位獲獎的青年科學家中，港澳地區佔了3席，麥沛然成為澳門首位和唯一獲此殊榮的學者。
在今年“科學探索獎”的提名、推薦和評審過程中，有超過900位各國院士、30多所著名大學校長參與。僅在提名推薦階段，就有20多位諾貝爾獎、圖靈獎、菲爾茲獎等國際大獎得主參與其中。麥沛然的獲獎項目為“無電池智能電子芯片”，可為國家解決大規模物聯網發展的技術瓶頸——人手換電池和電池不環保兩個問題。他表示：“澳門科學研究的起點不算高，但這幾年得到國家方方面面的支持，又有和大灣區的頻繁互動，進步速度很快。我們會在‘小而精’的方向上不斷努力，為國家的科技創新做出貢獻。”
麥沛然是土生土長的澳門人，現任澳大微電子研究院副院長（研究），亦是國際電機電子工程師學會會士（IEEE Fellow）、英國工程技術學會會士（IET Fellow）、英國皇家化學會會士（RSC Fellow）和中國科學院海外專家。他是國際公認的集成電路領域專家，專注於射頻和模擬電路領域的研究。他於2019年獲國慶70周年紀念章和獲選澳門彩車代表、2011年獲國家科學技術進步二等獎、2005年獲澳門政府授勛功績獎狀，2012年起6獲澳門技術發明獎。麥沛然也是澳大首個產學研創業公司Digifluidic聯合創始人，該公司以數字微流控芯片和自動化核酸分析系統爲核心產品，促進低成本和快速食品安全檢查及疾病篩查的發展。
“科學探索獎”於2018年由楊振寧、饒毅、施一公、潘建偉、謝曉亮等14位知名科學家與騰訊基金會發起人馬化騰共同發起，是目前國內金額最高的青年科技人才資助計劃之一。獎項覆蓋基礎科學和前沿技術10個領域，4年來共評選出200位得獎者。作為科學家主導的公益獎項，獎項秉持“面向未來、獎勵潛力、鼓勵探索”的宗旨，鼓勵青年科技人才探索科學“無人區”，探索社會支持基礎研究人才持續穩定的投入機制。
麥沛然 Mak Pui In