This is why, year after year, Rolex shines a light on visionaries working to create a better world. From medical breakthroughs and environmental sustainability to technological innovations that serve the underserved, these unsung heroes are turning ambitious ideas into tangible change. Here’s a look at some of their remarkable achievements – and the support from the Rolex Perpetual Planet Initiative that has helped make them possible.
PROFILE
Individuals Who Are Engineering Hope Around the World
by Charmian Leong
21 Apr 2025
21 Apr 2025
Rolex’s commitment to excellence extends far beyond timekeeping. Through its Perpetual Planet Initiative, the brand is continually supporting trailblazers whose work will save the world.
If you’re reading this, chances are you’re in a comfortable room, breathing clean air, well-fed, and secure in the knowledge that healthcare is always within reach. Tragically, this is not the reality for everyone. As the challenges facing humanity grow, there is an urgent need for solutions that are both innovative and scalable.
- HEALING WITHOUT BORDERS
- PLANET IN PERIL
- BIG DATA, BIGGER HEARTS
Healing Without Borders
Grégoire Courtine hopes to restore lost movement to paralysed people around the world. Here he is holding the Epidural Electrical Stimulation (EES) device.
Rolex Awards 2012 Laureate, Mark Kendall
Some of the most groundbreaking advancements in healthcare today sound like science fiction. Take Grégoire Courtine, a 2019 Rolex Awards Laureate, who founded the NeuroRestore Laboratory in Switzerland with a singular goal: Restoring movement to people with spinal cord injuries – through thought alone. His revolutionary “digital bridge” connects the brain to an Epidural Electrical Stimulation (EES) device implanted onto the spine, translating intention into action. When a patient thinks about moving, the brain implant detects this signal, and an algorithm converts it into electrical stimulation that activates the leg muscles.
Another transformative medical innovation comes from 2012 Laureate Mark Kendall, a biomedical engineer who developed the Nanopatch – a needle- and pain-free way to deliver vaccines directly to immune cells in the skin. These patches could revamp global vaccination programs by being more cost-effective and easier to distribute. Kendall has since expanded his work to wearable sensors through his company WearOptimo, developing skin-worn devices that monitor vital biosignals, enabling early disease detection and more personalized treatments.
(Related: 5 dynamic duos redefining global creativity)
Rolex Awards 2019 Laureate, Sara Saeed
Rolex Awards 2016 Laureate, Andrew Bastawrous
But existing technology can serve medicine, too, as 2019 Laureate Sara Saeed has demonstrated. Her Pakistan-based telemedicine service, Sehat Kahani, provides accessible healthcare to underserved communities via video calls and digital screenings. Beyond improving healthcare access, Saeed is tackling another issue: The underutilisation of female doctors. Her mission is to employ 50,000 women doctors and healthcare workers by 2030. The work is already promising: By 2021, the service has treated over one million patients.
Similarly, ophthalmologist Andrew Bastawrous left his UK National Health Service job in 2011 to launch Peek Vision, a company that harnesses smartphone technology to provide affordable eye care in resource-limited settings. After winning a Rolex Award in 2016, he developed the Peek Acuity app, which allows trained workers to check eyesight using a smartphone and refer patients to appropriate health facilities. As of March 2025, Peek’s technology has screened over 10 million people across 12 countries in Africa and Asia. With Rolex’s support, Bastawrous is now working toward expanding Peek across Nepal by 2028.
(Related: This Rolex Awards Laureate is working tirelessly to unlock the secrets of repopulating coral reefs)
- HEALING WITHOUT BORDERS
- PLANET IN PERIL
- BIG DATA, BIGGER HEARTS
Planet in Peril
Miranda Wang holding a vial of purified end product at the Novoloop headquarters in Menlo Park, USA.
There would be little point in saving humanity if there wasn’t a planet healthy enough to support it, and the figures are sobering: In 2019, 460 million tonnes of plastic were produced, with that number potentially expected to triple by 2060. Of that, only nine per cent of that plastic gets recycled, while the rest ends up in landfills or pollutes natural ecosystems.
Thankfully, entrepreneurs like Miranda Wang are tackling this head-on. In 2015, Wang co-founded Novoloop with her best friend, Jeanny Yao, to transform discarded plastic into high-performance materials like thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU), used in footwear and electronics. Last year, Wang opened a pilot plant in India, which became operational within three months. Novoloop has since grown to a team of over 40 and is now conducting an engineering study for a facility capable of processing 20,000 metric tonnes of plastic waste annually.
(Related: Sailing towards greatness)
- HEALING WITHOUT BORDERS
- PLANET IN PERIL
- BIG DATA, BIGGER HEARTS
Big Data, Bigger Hearts
Piyush Tewari (second from right), dressed in a high-vis jacket, inspects a road map with SaveLIFE Foundation members.
Other forward-thinking changemakers are focusing on society’s most pressing challenges through the use of scalable, data-driven, and technology-enabled solutions.
Elsewhere in India, 2010 Rolex Awards Laureate Piyush Tewari founded the SaveLIFE Foundation (SLF) after losing a young cousin in a preventable road accident. Through data-driven road safety interventions, SLF has tackled over 3,500 engineering flaws on the Mumbai-Pune Expressway alone, reducing road accident fatalities on that stretch by 52 per cent in just four years. The organisation has also trained over 48,000 people in life-saving skills and is now working with local governments to roll out its Zero Fatality District programme, ensuring safer roads nationwide.
Rolex Awards 2023 Laureate, Beth Koigi
Over in Africa, Beth Koigi’s social enterprise Majik Water has been creating clean drinking water from air for people in arid regions since 2017. The technology involves using atmospheric water generators (AWGs) to extract moisture from air, condense it, and filter it into potable water. As of 2022, Majik Water had installed 20 high-volume and 10 small-scale devices, producing 200,000 litres of water daily for thousands of people regularly affected by droughts in arid regions like Kenya.
While Koigi is solving the water issue, Felix Brooks-Church is combating malnutrition in East Africa. His social enterprise, Sanku, installs dosifier machines in local mills to automatically add essential micronutrients like Vitamin B12, folic acid, and iron to flour, ensuring communities receive proper nutrition. What makes the initiative even more impactful is its sustainable business model – allowing millers to fortify flour at no extra cost to themselves or their customers. Originally launched in Tanzania, Sanku has since expanded to five countries across East and Southern Africa, with Ethiopia next in line. By 2030, Brooks-Church aims to reach 100 million people.
Social entrepreneur Felix Brooks- church, pictured with workers adding nutrients to grain at Upangwa Mill in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
These innovators are proving that transformative change is possible if we have the vision – and the will – to pursue it. With the support of the Rolex Perpetual Planet initiative, their groundbreaking work gives us hope that this planet will, in fact, persist.
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