Zhores Alferov was born in Vitebsk in Belarus in 1930. In 1970 he received his doctorate in physics and mathematics from Ioffe Institute in Leningrad, today St. Petersburg. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in the year 2000 "for his basic work on information and communication technology". His pioneering work on semiconductor heterostructures now used in high-speed- and opto-electronics was fundamental for making fibre-optic communications practically possible. Today Professor Alferov is Vice President of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS), Chairman of St. Petersburg Scientific Centre of the RAS, Scientific Director of the Center of Nanoheterostructure's Physics at the Ioffe Institute, Chairman of the St. Petersburg Physics and Technology Center for Research and Education of the RAS, editor in chief of the Russian science journal "Technical Physics Letters", and a Member of the Committee of Science and Education of the State Duma (1995 - present).