Mark Zuckerberg (25), Founder and CEO of Facebook, the social utility that helps people communicate more efficiently with their friends, families and co-workers, will be honoured with the Media Person of the Year Award at the 57th Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival.

Cannes Lions, the world's largest celebration of creativity in communications and the most prestigious international annual advertising awards, presents The Media Person the Year Award to a prominent personality who is an influential figure in the development of today's media landscape, ultimately playing an integral part in shaping the future of the advertising industry.

Facebook, founded by Mark in 2004 whilst studying computer science at Harvard University, develops technologies that facilitate the sharing of information through the social graph, the digital mapping of people's real-world social connections. As CEO, Mark is responsible for setting the overall direction and product strategy for the company. He leads the design of Facebook's service and development of its core technology and infrastructure. Headquartered in Palo Alto, California, Facebook has over 400 million active users.

"Cannes Lions Media Person of the Year is awarded to those who have changed the face of media and communications, usually after a lifetime of achievement. For Mark Zuckerberg to have created one of the internet's most dominant businesses so quickly, and to have had such a global impact on the way we all communicate with each other, is quite simply astonishing. We are delighted to honour him with this award," said Philip Thomas, Cannes Lions CEO.

"We are still in the early stages of our mission to build things that make the world more open and connected, so I feel honoured and humbled to receive this award in recognition of what we've accomplished so far," said Mark Zuckerberg, CEO and Founder of Facebook. "We will continue to innovate and push technical boundaries to create better ways for people, developers, and advertisers to connect and share on our platform."

Mark Zuckerberg will be honoured during the Press, Cyber and Design Lions Awards Ceremony on the evening of Wednesday 23 June, in the Palais des Festivals, Cannes.

Cannes Lions delegates will have the opportunity to listen to Mark Zuckerberg when he presents the Facebook Seminar on Wednesday 23 June.

Previous recipients of the Media Person of the Year Award include, Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft Corporation; Sir Anthony O'Reilly, CEO of Independent News & Media; Tsuneo Watanabe, Chairman and Editor-in-Chief of The Yomiuri Shimbun Holdings; Sumner Redstone, Chairman and CEO of Viacom and Gerald Levin, CEO of AOL Time Warner.