We are extremely pleased to share with you that Dr. Krithi K. Karanth, our Chief Conservation Scientist and the 10,000th grantee of National Geographic Society, has won the 2019 Rolex Award for Enterprise on 14th June, 2019, in Washington, DC. Since 1976, Rolex has honoured over 140 people including 10 Indians. Dr. Karanth becomes the third Indian woman to be a Rolex Laureate.
Rolex Award for Enterprise is awarded annually to people who are using original and innovative ideas to make the world a better place. The award, beyond its honour, supports its five winners with a generous grant. The other winners of Rolex Award for Enterprise are João Campos-Silva (Brazil), Grégoire Courtine (France), Brian Gitta (Uganda), and Miranda Wang (Canada).
From left: Brian Gitta, Krithi Karanth, Grégoire Courtine, Miranda Wang, João Campos-Silva. ©Rolex/Bart Michiels
The winners of 2019 were hand-picked by an independent, international jury of ten accomplished individuals, including the likes of Adam Rutherford and Jonathan Baillie. They first met in February to shortlist 10 candidates from a pool of 957 applicants from 111 countries.
For the first time this year, Rolex invited the public to vote for their favourite projects. The jury’s decision took this public vote into account—a vote in which Dr. Karanth received support from more than 100 countries.
“It is truly an honour for me today to be an Indian, a woman, and a wildlife conservationist to receive this award,” said Dr. Karanth. “The Rolex award will enable all of us at the Centre for Wildlife Studies to significantly scale our Wild Seve and Wild Shaale programs to empower local communities around parks to cope with wildlife related losses and inspire thousands of children to be future custodians of the stunning wildlife and wild places around them.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShDrQ9p46jw
Full details about the event can be found at:
https://pressroom.rolex.com/en/philanthropy/philanthropy1/rolex-awards-for-enterprise0/2019.html
