Ole von Uexküll is the Executive Director of the Right Livelihood Award Foundation. The foundation was founded in 1980 by Ole’s uncle Jakob von Uexküllto offer exemplary solutions to our most urgent global problems, including environmental degradation, the unsustainable exploitation of resources, and growing social injustices. The award, which has become known as the “Alternative Nobel Prize,” is given annually to people pioneering "exemplary solutions to our most urgent global problems" in fields such as environmental protection, human rights, conflict resolution, and development. There are now 149 laureates from 62 countries. Some 50 percent of all Award recipients come from less economically developed countries.

Ole's main tasks at the foundation are strategy development, research, representation, fundraising, and financial management. He wants to spread the idea of “right livelihood”, the guiding principle of fairness and justice behind the award, and works towards promoting the vision shared by recipients of the Award, namely that we should all “respect the priority of natural laws above economic laws.”

Right Livelihood Award Foundation

Michael Kahn-Ackermann, Stiftung Mercator China Special Representative

Stiftung Mercator is one of the largest private foundations in Germany. It pursues clearly defined objectives in its thematic clusters of integration, climate change, and arts education and it achieves these objectives with a combination of socio-political advocacy and practical work. Stiftung Mercator implements its own projects and supports external projects in its centers for science and humanities, education, and international affairs. It takes an entrepreneurial, professional, and international approach to its work. China is the most important new political and economic actor in the emerging, multipolar world and a country with extraordinary potential. Quite simply, international development is no longer conceivable without China. This demands a better and more nuanced understanding of Chinese reality, especially in Germany. This is what we hope to achieve in long-term partnerships and cooperative ventures. Currently, Stiftung Mercator is funding several different projects in China: school and youth exchanges, multiplier en- counters and fellowship programmes for young managers in the areas of civil society, politics, academia and business. For more information, please see http://www.stiftung-mercator.de/en.