Malawi president honoured with creative leadership award

NEW YORK—At the September 21 gala reception and dinner for its third annual Global Creative Leadership Summit, the Louise Blouin Foundation presented its 2008 global creative leadership awards to Craig Barrett, Chairman of the Board of Intel Corporation; Bingu Wa Mutharika, President of the Republic of Malawi; Paul Nurse, president of Rockefeller University; and theater and opera director Peter Sellars.



“We are thrilled to honor these four visionary individuals,” said Louise Blouin MacBain,
founder and chairman of the Louise Blouin Foundation. “Craig Barrett,
Sir Paul Nurse, Peter Sellars, and President Bingu Wa Mutharika have
not just reached the pinnacle of excellence in their respective fields,
they have also committed their lives and careers to improving the lives
of others across borders.”  



Past award winners include President Bill Clinton, Eli Broad, Jeff Koons, Richard Meier, Renée Fleming, Richard Axel, Sir Clive Gillinson, Eric Kandel, and Jimmy Wales.



The Summit has also announced two important projects. The first, the LINK Project
“seeks to create a search engine and online network to connect
philanthropic institutions, NGOs, and other non-for-profits globally
working across the areas of development, aid, education, health, and
poverty alleviation,” according to a press release. The project, which
is being developed with the help of engineers at Google and in
collaboration with the United Nations Office for Partnership, is meant
to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the NGO community.



The second initiative is the Fund for the Cultural Preservation of Tibet and the Promotion of Chinese Culture.
The mission of the fund, according to a press release, is “to strictly
complement the already existing cultural preservation efforts in the
Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR) by the Chinese Government. This
platform, administered by the Louise Blouin Foundation, seeks to obtain
money from countries, foundations, artists, corporations and private
donors to further support domestic cultural preservation efforts; to
organize a series of international exhibitions on Tibetan and Chinese
culture; and to create a series of online promotional tools for Tibetan
and Chinese culture.”



The first project associated with the fund is an exhibition of new works by the Chinese contemporary artist Wang Guangyi, at the Louise Blouin Institute in London, from October 17, 2008, to March 1, 2009. Additionally, the Institute and Pace Beijing gallery will present an exhibition of works by another contemporary Chinese artist, Yue Minjun,
in the spring of 2009. Pace Beijing will make a substantial
contribution to the Fund for the Cultural Preservation of Tibet and the
Promotion of Chinese Culture as part of the partnership.