Prof. Askar Akayev was born in 1944 (Kyzyl-Bairak village, Kemin district), Kyrgyz. He is a Doctor of Technical Sciences and an Academician of the Kyrgyz Academy of Sciences. Prof. Akayev is married and has two sons and two daughters.
After graduation from the Leningrad Precision Mechanics and Optics Institute in 1968, with the qualification of engineer-mathematician, specialty “Computer,” he pursued his studies to become a Candidate of Sciences, and a Doctor of Sciences at the same Institute. He then worked as a senior lecturer, associate professor, and professor at the Polytechnical Institute of Frunze (now Bishkek). In 1977, he was awarded Kyrgyz Comsomol Prize for research in the development of mathematical theory of warm conditions of computer memory units and reliability of their functioning.
While at the institute, he also authored a textbook entitled “Optical Methods for Information Processing,” published in Moscow in 1988, by Vysshaya Shkola Publishing House (240 pp.), considered to be the first of its kind in the former Soviet Union.
In 1987, he was elected to the post of vice-president of the Kyrgyz Academy of Sciences. In 1989, he was appointed to the post of the president of the Kyrgyz Academy of Sciences.
Prof. Akayev served as President of Kyrgyzstan from 1990 until March 2005.
Askar Akayev has authored more than 100 scientific works and articles.
His works are widely implemented in practice. The book “Coherent Optical Computers,” written by him together with the famous soviet scientist and USSR State Prize Winner, Professor S. Mayorov, was the first of its kind in the former USSR and became the theoretical and practical textbook for those who work in this sphere.
Prof. Akayev is the awardee of the Grand Cross by the Association for Unity of Latin America, for his contribution to the development of peace, promotion of democracy, strengthening fraternal ties between peoples struggling for human rights.
At the end of 1992, Prof. Askar Akayev was announced “The Man of the Year,” in Kyrgyzstan for his activities in promoting national fraternity and stability in the republic and successful external policy.
Akayev, who is a former member of the Scientific Council of the Academy of Sciences of the former USSR, has been serving his country as president since 1990.
He was elected Fellow of the IAS in 1993.