The Legatum FORTUNE Technology Prize
In the era of total global competition for scarce resources, where ethnic groups are at war, and the rich are getting richer, where values are being tested and transformed faster than we may reflect upon them, indeed, overwhelming the sensibility of mankind; enterprise and technology solutions to poverty represent, perhaps, the best hope for poor nations.
- Michael Fairbanks
Overview
The Legatum FORTUNE Technology Prize is founded upon the conviction that sustainable, scalable, technology-driven business enterprises offer the most effective means to promote prosperity and bring people out of poverty. A for-profit business approach has been shown to foster long-term economic development and wealth creation through individual ownership, the rewards of productivity and enhancement of economic opportunities.
 Iqbal Z. Quadir Chairman of the judging panel
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The Legatum FORTUNE Technology Prize serves to seek out, recognize, and honour individuals and organisations that demonstrate the impact of technology upon intractable development issues, establishing these visionaries as role models for a world repeatedly failed by the old models of government aid and handouts.
A Prize fund of USD 1,000,000 is awarded to organisations, or individuals, whose application of technology solutions has demonstrably improved the quality of life amongst impoverished populations. Nominated by a trusted network of technology experts, they are evaluated by a panel of eminent judges from the worlds of technology, business and development, whose experience will encompass grassroots development programs, private equity investment, academia, and policy-making under the leadership of Iqbal Z. Quadir, Director of the Legatum Center for Development and Entrepreneurship at MIT.
Mr. Quadir is an accomplished entrepreneur, author and lecturer on the potential of bottom-up entrepreneurship and innovation. He is widely credited as being among the first to recognize the empowering potential of mobile telephony to unleash economic activity in developing countries, proven in his founding and development of the now multi-billion dollar GrameenPhone in Bangladesh.
Managed and audited by independent experts, the program culminated in the presentation of the first USD 1,000,000 Legatum FORTUNE Technology Prize at the FORTUNE 500 Forum in Washington DC, in early December 2008.
The winners of the 2008 Legatum FORTUNE Technology Prize were Comat Technologies (Pvt.) Ltd. and Microfinance International. For more information about the winners and finalists, click here.
The original concept for the Prize was developed for Legatum and FORTUNE by S.E.VEN Fund, a virtual non-profit entity run by entrepreneurs whose strategy is to increase the rate of diffusion of enterprise-based solutions to poverty (www.sevenfund.org).
For more information about the Legatum FORTUNE Technology Prize, please contact:
Hamish Banks
Legatum
+971 4 317 5800
Hamish.Banks@legatum.com
Katy Reitz
FORTUNE Communications
+1 212 522 6724
Katy_Reitz@timeinc.com
Danielle Perissi
Edelman
+1 212 704 8281
Danielle.Perissi@edelman.com
