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  • Dubai Awards Ceremony
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  • Waste not, want not
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  • Young Rolex Awards
  • Selection of the 2008 Laureates
  • Royal Patron for the 2008 Awards
  • Laureates join forces

Selection of the 2008 Laureates

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Projects submitted from around the world for the 13th series of the Rolex Awards have been evaluated at the Geneva Secretariat. Rolex will announce the winners in Dubai and on this website on 18 November 2008.

The Selection Committee, which is chaired by Rolex CEO Patrick Heiniger, met at Rolex headquarters in April 2008 to choose the five Laureates and five Associate Laureates of the 13th series of the Rolex Awards.

For every series of the Awards, Rolex invites a panel of eminent specialists to choose the winners. The judges themselves are selected not only for their outstanding achievements within their area of expertise but also for their wider interests and for their contributions to human knowledge and endeavour, which reflect the values promoted by the Rolex Awards.

The 2008 Awards ceremony will be held on 18 November in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, the first Rolex Awards event to be held in the Middle East.

All five Laureates will receive their prizes – a gold Rolex chronometer and US$100,000 to support their projects – at the Dubai ceremony, before an audience of statesmen and business and institutional leaders from Dubai and the surrounding region, Rolex directors and the members of the Selection Committee.

The city of Dubai is undergoing dramatic change, with rapid growth of the services and tourism sectors in particular. Mega-construction projects are also transforming the city’s skyline.

“After a very successful prize-giving ceremony for the 12th Rolex Awards in Singapore last October and a major boost in Asian-Pacific interest in the Awards, we decided to hold the next event in Dubai, which is already making its mark as a progressive, 21st-century city,” says Rebecca Irvin, head of the Rolex Awards Secretariat. “We expect and hope that holding the major event of this Awards series in this remarkable city will also boost interest in the Rolex Awards across the Middle East.”

Many hundreds of applications for the 13th series arrived at the Rolex Awards Secretariat, located at Rolex headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. A team of researchers at the Secretariat examined and evaluated application forms from around the world. The evaluations compiled by the research team were sent to the Selection Committee members before they came to Geneva in April 2008 to debate the merits of the best projects and chose the 10 winners.

Before November, a major publication and a documentary film about the winning projects will be prepared for the Awards ceremony and to draw worldwide attention to the new Laureates.

The five Associate Laureates each receive their prizes – a gold-and-steel Rolex chronometer and substantial funding to support their project – at special ceremonies in their own countries or regions.

Meet the 2008 Selection Committee

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