In 2000 we opened the award to a public vote. Olympic rowing gold medallist Rob Waddell and actor and child-abuse campaigner Lucy Lawless were elected man and woman of the year.
In acknowledging them, our editorial said their selections told us a great deal about New Zealanders at the dawn of the 21st century.
"We admire success when it is worn with the modesty of a sportsman such as Rob Waddell, our Man of the Year.
"We also like people blessed with natural attributes to use them for the good of the community, as Lucy Lawless, Woman of the Year, has done by lending her fame to the effort to combat child abuse."
IN HINDSIGHT Waddell and Lawless were worthy winners but, looking back we would have chosen Alan McDiarmid, a New Zealand professor who shared the Nobel Prize for chemistry in 2000 with two others for their work in showing how plastics could be used to conduct electricity.
The discovery was made in the late 1970s but it was not until 21st century that it re-shaped, and is continuing to re-shape, the technology we use.
"Semi-conductive polymers have recently been developed in light-emitting diodes, solar cells and as displays in mobile telephones and mini-format television screens," the Nobel committee said when it made the award.
"Research on conductive polymers is also closely related to the rapid development in molecular electronics.
"In the future we will be able to produce transistors and other electronic components consisting of individual molecules - which will dramatically increase the speed and reduce the size of our computers.
"A computer corresponding to what we now carry around in our bags would suddenly fit inside a watch."
Nobel Prize winner Alan MacDiarmid made discoveries that are becoming increasingly relevant. Lucy Lawless was named Woman of the Year. (NZ Herald Archive)
