A panel of prominent scientists, environmentalists, experts and entrepreneurs will select the five Young Laureates for the 2014 Rolex Awards for Enterprise. They will meet at Rolex headquarters in Geneva in April to select the five Young Laureates, who will be honoured at a ceremony later in the year. The winners will each receive 50,000 Swiss francs to further their work, a Rolex chronometer and ongoing international publicity, as well as access to and advice from the Rolex Awards worldwide network of past Laureates.

The 2014 series of the Rolex Awards is devoted exclusively to people aged between 18 and 30 years who have creative solutions to pressing global problems. The applications for 2014 have now closed, with a record 1,800 young people applying from 129 countries.

A new, independent jury is recruited for each series of the Awards. The members of the 2014 Jury, who will choose the Young Laureates after all the applications have been examined and evaluated by a team of researchers at Rolex, are:

KEVIN HAND (United States), deputy-chief scientist of the Solar System Exploration Directorate at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, is helping spearhead a project to send a spacecraft to explore Jupiter’s moon, Europa, in an effort to find life beyond Earth. He is also engaged in empowering African children through his Cosmos Education organization.

YOLANDA KAKABADSE (Ecuador), a world-famous environmentalist, is a long-time champion of sustainable development and biodiversity preservation. Currently president of WWF International, she has served as president of the International Union for Conservation and Nature (IUCN) and as Ecuador’s Minister of Environment.

DIÉBÉDO FRANCIS KÉRÉ (Burkina Faso) is an architect acclaimed for his ecological building solutions that use local materials and techniques, and involve local communities in Africa. Among his many projects is a primary school in his home town, Gando, which won an Aga Khan Award.

LU ZHI (China), a leading conservation biologist and giant panda expert, is spearheading research on the sustainability issues faced by the Chinese people as they struggle to live in balance with nature. She serves today as executive director of Peking University’s Center for Nature and Society and as chief scientist at the Shan Shui Conservation Center.

LINDA PARTRIDGE (United Kingdom) is a much-respected scientist and an expert on the biology of ageing. She is currently a professor of biometry and director of the Institute of Healthy Ageing at University College London (UCL) and a founding director of the Max Planck Institute for the Biology of Ageing, in Cologne.

ADAM RUTHERFORD (United Kingdom) is a geneticist, author and broadcaster known for such insightful programmes as Inside Science for BBC Radio 4 and The Cell and The Gene Code for BBC Television. A former editor at Nature, he writes for leading newspapers.

ROHINTON SOLI “RONNIE” SCREWVALA (India) is a prominent entrepreneur and social philanthropist who launched India’s first cable TV network and founded media conglomerate UTV. He is now focusing on rural development through his Swades Foundation and encouraging entrepreneurship through Unilazer Ventures.

HAYAT SINDI (Saudi Arabia) is a trailblazing biotechnologist known for developing cutting-edge technologies and for empowering young Middle Eastern innovators through her i2 Institute for imagination and ingenuity. A National Geographic Emerging Explorer, Sindi serves on the UN Scientific Advisory Board and Saudi Arabia’s Consultative Assembly.

This year’s Young Laureates will join the network of 125 Laureates and Young Laureates from more than 60 countries who have been honoured since the initiative began. The 2014 Jury will similarly join the 122 expert judges who have served before them.

To read more about the Rolex Awards, click HERE

Source: Rolex