African business and humanitarian leader Strive Masiyiwa to serve on prestigious international jury that awards world’s largest humanitarian prize.
LOS ANGELES, CA – January 10, 2012 – The Conrad N. Hilton Foundation today announced that Strive Masiyiwa, an African humanitarian, businessman and cell phone pioneer who founded Econet Wireless, has accepted its invitation to serve on the Prize jury, beginning with selection of the 2012 recipient this winter. He replaces Olara Otunnu, a former United Nations Under-Secretary and Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, whose term has ended.
“Serving on the Hilton Humanitarian Prize jury is both an honor and a great responsibility,” said Mr. Masiyiwa. “Selecting one organization from among so many worthy NGOs to receive this prize is an endeavor I take seriously and humbly.”
At $1.5 million, the Hilton Prize is the world’s largest humanitarian award. To date, 16 organizations judged to have made extraordinary contributions toward alleviating human suffering have received the prize which is presented annually.
Mr. Masiyiwa is the founder and executive chairman of Econet Wirelesss, a global telecommunications company whose activities include mobile cellular telephony, fixed networks, enterprise networks, fibre optic cables and satellite services. The Group’s companies also provide payment solutions to banks across Africa. Mr. Masiyiwa has been in business since 1986. He first came to international prominence when he fought a landmark constitutional legal battle for five years in Zimbabwe. The ruling, which led to the removal of the state monopoly in telecommunications, is generally regarded as one of the key milestones in opening the African telecommunications sector to private capital. His flagship business, South African-based Econet Wireless, is now a global telecommunications group with operations, investments and offices in more than 15 countries in Africa, Europe, USA, Latin America and Asia-Pacific.
“We are most fortunate to have Strive join our distinguished international jury,” said Judy Miller, foundation vice president and director, Hilton Humanitarian Prize. “Strive brings an incredible depth of experience, perspective and passion to the jury and the jurors all look forward to collaborating with him.”
Mr. Masiyiwa has served on numerous boards and trusts both in Zimbabwe and internationally. In 1995 he was appointed by President Bill Clinton to the board of the Southern African Enterprise Development Fund. He is also a trustee of the Rockefeller Foundation and a board member of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa which is funded by the Rockefeller Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and chaired by Kofi Annan.
Mr. Masiyiwa and his wife are active humanitarians, focusing on promoting awareness of the impact of AIDS in Africa, and their foundation currently provides support for more than 40,000 orphans.
As one of the most respected African business leaders today, Mr. Masiyiwa speaks regularly at major international business gatherings and has been featured in leading international publications and television programs, among them the Economist, Newsweek, Barron’s, Financial Times and CNN. In 1990 Mr. Masiyiwa was the youngest ever recipient of Zimbabwe’s Businessman of the Year award; in 1998 he was named his country’s Manager of the Year and Entrepreneur of the Year; and in 2002 he was named to Time magazine’s Global Business Influentials List.
Mr. Masiyiwa was born in what was Southern Rhodesia in 1961. He went to high school in Scotland, earned a degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering (Cum Laude) at the University of Wales, and returned to newly independent Zimbabwe in 1984 where he took a job with the state-owned telephone company. Foreseeing the rise of cell phones, Mr. Masiyiwa founded Econet Wireless in 1994 which today serves customers throughout the world. He lives in Johannesburg, South Africa, with his wife, Tsitsi, and six children.
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The Hilton Prize jury currently includes: Princess Salimah Aga Khan, international ambassador for SOS Kinderdorf International; Catherine A. Bertini, professor of public administration, Syracuse University, and former executive director of the United Nations World Food Programme; Gro Harlem Brundtland, MPH, former director-general of the World Health Organization and former prime minister of Norway; Eric M. Hilton, director, Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, and son of the foundation’s founder, the late Conrad Hilton; James R. Galbraith, director, Conrad N. Hilton Foundation; Strive Masiyiwa, African humanitarian, business leader and cell phone pioneer; and Professor Amartya Sen, Nobel Prize Laureate in economics and Lamont University professor at Harvard University.
The Hilton Prize Laureates are recognized leaders in the humanitarian world and include: Handicap International (France) 2011; Aravind Eye Care System (India) 2010; PATH (Washington), 2009; BRAC (Bangladesh), 2008; Tostan (Senegal), 2007; Women for Women International (Washington, DC), 2006; Partners In Health (Massachusetts), 2005; Heifer International (Arkansas), 2004; International Rehabilitation Center for Torture Victims (Denmark), 2003; SOS Children’s Villages (Austria), 2002; St. Christopher’s Hospice (United Kingdom), 2001; Casa Alianza (Latin America), 2000; African Medical and Research Foundation (Kenya), 1999; Doctors Without Borders (France), 1998; International Rescue Committee (New York), 1997; and Operation Smile (Virginia), 1996.
The Conrad N. Hilton Foundation was created in 1944 by international business pioneer Conrad N. Hilton, who founded Hilton Hotels and left his fortune to the foundation to help the world’s disadvantaged and vulnerable people. The Foundation currently conducts strategic initiatives in five priority areas: providing safe water, ending chronic homelessness, preventing substance abuse, caring for vulnerable children, and extending Conrad Hilton’s support for the work of Catholic Sisters. Following selection by an independent international jury, the Foundation annually awards the $1.5 million Conrad N. Hilton Humanitarian Prize to a nonprofit organization doing extraordinary work to reduce human suffering. From its inception, the Foundation has awarded nearly $940 million in grants, distributing more than $100 million in 2010. The Foundation’s current assets are approximately $2 billion. Approximately 50% of its funding is international.