Linux isn't the first innovative polyvalent operating system (that went to UNIX) - it isn't even an OS, it's a kernel. It is not the first professional-grade operating system to be Free (that went to BSD UNIX). It isn't even innovative as a UNIX clone (it's still a monolithic design). Efficiency-wise, it isn't even completely there yet, if the continuing debate on the different schedulers is any indication.
However, and this is probably what this award is about, Linus Torvalds managed to federate so many people from all over the world and from so many areas of expertise, and to actually have them making something that works, and works VERY well, that this fact alone is praiseworthy - Richard Stallman, the father of Free Software failed at that with GNU; Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and all the others wanted big money - see Vista, see the margins on iThingies, etc.
Although Linus makes some cash off his work on Linux (he gets paid, very well - but he doesn't own his company), his main interest is software that does what he, or others, wants it to do. That's his credo - and, linked with his exceptional talent at herding cats and a practical sense of software design (he is famous for harshly criticising this or that software that don't agree with him - his views on GNOME's dumbing down are cult), makes Linux the most advanced and versatile UNIX-like kernel currently in existence.
I only hope the next one to get it will be Brian Paul, for his work on the Mesa driver stack and OpenGL implementation, which is the next big thing today on Free systems: one driver stack to drive them all, one driver API to guide them and in lit pixels draw them in the world of accelerated graphics where mobiles go wild 😛