Meg Lowman and Andrew Bastawrous Honored
Winners Celebrated at Aula Volta Ceremony
The Tällberg Foundation celebrated the winners of its prestigious global leadership prize at the University of Pavia in Italy. The winners of the award, announced at the end of last year, are:
Margaret Lowman, U.S., global pioneer in forest canopy ecology, author, and educator for her tireless and innovative scientific and advocacy work to protect the planet’s forests;
Andrew Bastawrous, U.K., ophthalmologist and co-founder & CEO of Peek Vision and The Peek Vision Foundation for bringing vision—and thereby better lives—to more than a million people.
“These two extraordinary leaders are dynamic forces for good, in a world that is plagued by too much evil,” said Alan Stoga, Chairman of the Tällberg Foundation. “Dr. Lowman is making an important contribution to changing the arc of the climate crisis through her science and her advocacy. Dr. Bastawrous is harnessing the power of technology to transform how people see the world—literally bringing sight to at least a million vision-impaired people in Africa,” said Stoga. “They are exactly the sort of leaders that we seek to honor and nurture—because they are actually changing the world for the better.”
The Tällberg-SNF-Eliasson Global Leadership Prize is awarded annually to leaders from any country and any discipline who are dynamic, innovative, courageous, global in their thinking and rooted in universal values. Past winners include scientists, artists, social entrepreneurs, religious figures, and many others. The Prize brings a stipend of $50,000.
Every year, the Tällberg Foundation selects a global partner to celebrate leadership. The University of Pavia joins past hosts including Strathmore University (Nairobi), the National Technological Institute of Mexico (Mexico City), and Columbia University (New York). According to Stoga, “The University of Pavia, under the leadership of Rector Svelto, is the perfect partner for a global organization like the Tällberg Foundation. We both believe that the overlapping crises facing our world urgently demand new thinking and new leaders, but also that leaders need to understand the context which produced those crises.”
The Prizes were formally awarded at a ceremony on the evening of January 26 at Aula Volta by Ambassador Vassilis Kaskarelis, senior advisor to the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) Board of Directors, which funds the Tällberg Foundation’s leadership work.