Exciting projects such as employing technology to improve health diagnoses in the developing world, wildlife conservation in Africa and exploration in South America will receive support from Rolex after five young visionaries became Young Laureates of the 2014 Rolex Awards for Enterprise.

The four men and one woman from Africa, India, Europe and the Middle East - aged 30 and under - were announced during a ceremony at London’s leading scienctific institution, the Royal Society, last week.

Each of the winning projects was singled out for its originality and impact by the eminent 2014 Rolex Jury of independent experts, who reviewed a shortlist of finalists from among 1,800 applicants around the globe.

Overview - The Laureates & The Projects

 Neeti Kailas

2014 Young Laureate, Science & Health
India, Born 1985

Neeti Kailas - Science & Health Laureate

While her classmates at India’s prestigious National Institute of Design (NID), in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, were creating stylish new versions of household products, or innovative fabrics, Neeti Kailas was redesigning the bedpan for India’s crowded public hospitals.
The bedpan project sparked a passion to use design to transform health care in her native country. To this end, she has focused her attention on those who can be disadvantaged at the very start of their lives, newborn babies.
There are over 100,000 babies born with hearing impairment in India, and, if this is not detected at an early stage, it can seriously impede the development of speech, language and cognition with a concomitant reduction in opportunity and quality of life. Kailas’s non-invasive, portable diagnostic device to facilitate routine screening of newborn babies has the potential to help many hundreds of children at a fundamental stage of their development.

 Olivier Nsengimana

2014 Young Laureate, Environment
Rwanda, Born 1984

Olivier Nsengimana - Environment Laureate

Olivier Nsengimana chose to volunteer as a field veterinarian for Gorilla Doctors as a way of giving back to his country. While the gorilla is a famously iconic symbol of Rwanda’s endangered species, many others are also under threat from poaching and habitat encroachment. Nsengimana is currently on a mission to save the grey crowned-crane, which is fast dying out in Rwanda because of illegal poaching.

He plans to do this by persuading those who keep the birds as pets – which is illegal – to take advantage of an amnesty programme and relinquish them to a rehabilitation centre, from where they can be released into the wild.
Additionally, he is establishing a database of grey crowned-cranes in the country and embarking on an awareness-raising campaign through the media to persuade people of the importance of conservation and the necessity of finding livelihoods that do not threaten endangered species.

 Francesco Sauro

2014 Young Laureate, Exploration
Italy, Born 1984

Francesco Sauro - Exploration Laureate

Towering over the savannah and rainforest that straddle south-eastern Venezuela and northern Brazil, the string of quartzite plateaus constitutes one of the globe’s most dramatic landscapes.
But it also contains extensive cave structures, which harbour unique geological and biological features that have evolved over millennia in isolation from the surrounding environment.

 Arthur Zang

2014 Young Laureate, Applied Technology
Cameroon, Born 1987

Arthur Zang - Applied Technology Laureate

By day, Arthur Zang may seem like any other university IT specialist, but, by night, he uses his technological know-how to pioneer cardiac health care in his native Cameroon.

Zang has invented the Cardio Pad – which is believed to be Africa’s first handheld medical computer tablet. This device will allow health-care workers in rural areas to send the results of cardiac tests to specialists via a mobile phone connection, massively increasing the availability of cardiac health care for those living in remote rural parts of Cameroon, and ultimately in other developing nations.
He is a gifted innovator who likes to put his ideas into practice and see them through to final completion.

 Hosam Zowawi

2014 Young Laureate, Science & Health
Saudi Arabia, Born 1984

Hosam Zowawi - Science & Health Laureate

Hosam Zowawi is a clinical microbiologist with an interest in antibiotic resistant bacterial diseases, the so-called “superbugs”. Due to the lethal nature of such infections, the time to diagnosis is critical and can often take too long to save the patient or stop the disease spreading rapidly to others.

To this end, he has developed a fast diagnostic tool called “Rapid Superbug” that identifies the type of infection more quickly, facilitating appropriate treatment in the early stages of the infection. This offers better prospects for the survival of the patients, as well as helping to limit the spread of the disease.

Source: Rolex