Runa Khan Guest of Honor at the Rolex Awards for Enterprise

Published Date: January 4, 2012

Photo courtesy: © Rolex / Nick Harvey

On 7 December 2011, to celebrate the 35th anniversary of the Rolex Awards for Enterprise, an event was co-hosted by Rolex and the Royal Geographical Society (RGS) at the 180 year old institution’s London headquarters. The six guests of honours at the gala dinner of nearly 100 guests were former Laureates and Young Laureates: Friendship’s Executive Director Runa Khan from Bangladesh, Michel André from France, Rory Wilson from the U.K., Bruktawit Tigabu from Ethiopia, Nnaemeka Ikegwuonu from Nigeria and Piyush Tewari from India.

Short documentary films of the Rolex Award-winning projects demonstrating how the winners have developed solutions to some of today’s most pressing problems, were screened at the event.

Also present at the event, among others were President of RGS, the noted travel writer, documentarian and comedian Michael Palin, physicist and author Prof. Jim Al-Khalili, glaciologist Dr. Poul Christofferson from the Scott Polar Research Institute at Cambridge University, Bruce Parry, broadcaster and adventurer, Dr. Michael Dixon, director of the Natural History Museum, Bettany Hughes, historian, author and broadcaster; Sir Roland Jackson, chief executive of the British Science Association; Bruce Parry, broadcaster and adventurer; Prof. Sir Ghillean Prance, botanist and ecologist; Dr Simon Stuart, chair of the Species Survival Commission, IUCN; Jock Wishart, maritime and polar adventurer; Gary Martin, director of the Global Diversity Foundation and a former Rolex Awards Jury member; Deyan Sudjic, director of London’s Design Museum; and Antony Gormley, sculptor and honorary fellow of the Royal Institution of British Architects (RIBA).

The next Rolex Awards will be presented in late 2012 at a ceremony in India.