President, Legatum Capital
Assistant Managing Editor, Fortune
The Legatum FORTUNE Technology Prize was 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 prize fund of USD 1,000,000 will be awarded yearly to honor individuals and organizations whose application of technology solutions has demonstrably improved the quality of life among impoverished populations.
Legatum and Fortune are pleased to announce that the first Legatum FORTUNE Technology Prize was shared equally by Comat Technologies and Microfinance International.
Nominated by a trusted network of technology experts, the five finalists were 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. Iqbal Z. Quadir, Director of the Legatum Center for Development and Entrepreneurship at MIT led the panel. Mr. Quadir is an accomplished entrepreneur, author and lecturer on the potential of bottom-up entrepreneurship and innovation and widely credited as being among the first to recognize the empowering potential of mobile telephony to unleash economic activity in developing countries.
The judging panel convened in December to evaluate the finalists. The panel made their decision based upon the demonstrated correlation between technology deployed and development impact; sustainability and scalability of the technology solution; and evidence the solution is conducive to maintaining a business environment that recognizes employees, rewards owners, and is environmentally sensitive and forward-looking.
