Slovenian artificial intelligence pioneer Ivan Bratko received the Golden Order of Merit on May 7, 2026, at a presidential forum in Brdo pri Kranju, honoring a 50 year career that established Slovenia as an unexpected global force in machine learning and logic programming. President Nataša Pirc Musar presented the award to the 79 year old professor, whose 1986 textbook “Prolog Programming for Artificial Intelligence” became one of the most influential works in symbolic AI, translated into seven languages and still used in university courses worldwide. The decoration recognized Bratko’s courage in entering a field “still in its infancy” during the 1970s, when he and two colleagues began research in an unfinished attic at the Jožef Stefan Institute that lacked windows and endured extreme temperatures, yet eventually spawned multiple AI departments.
Bratko’s impact extends far beyond academia. In 1985 he founded the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at Ljubljana’s Faculty of Computer and Information Science, which he led until 2017, supervising generations of researchers who became established scientists worldwide. His work on machine learning and qualitative reasoning led to the KARDIO system for diagnosing cardiac arrhythmias, technology so advanced that it was incorporated into the world’s first AI powered pacemaker by an Australian manufacturer a decade later. The Ljubljana school of AI that formed around Bratko emphasized logic and explainability, principles that have regained urgency as modern AI systems become increasingly incomprehensible.
The presidential forum used the occasion to issue a call for educational reform, with Pirc Musar and panel experts urging authorities to make AI an integral part of school curricula and introduce dedicated computer science subjects in primary schools, echoing long standing demands that have yet to be implemented. For Slovenia, a nation of two million that has produced disproportionate global AI contributions including the Orange data analytics tool used by thousands worldwide, Bratko’s recognition represents both celebration of past achievement and a challenge to ensure the next generation inherits the technical foundation that began in a freezing attic half a century ago.
