Alumnus awards for Dr Paul Kibwika and Dr Ruud Kleinpaste
The Alumnus Award for Innovative Development went to Dr Paul Kibwika from Uganda and the Outstanding Alumnus award went to Dr Ruud Kleinpaste from New Zeeland. The awards were presented during the Dies Natalis (Foundation Day celebration) of Wageningen University on 9 march 2009.
The winners received the Awards from ir. Rob Tazelaar, the chairman of the Wageningen University Fund. The jury, comprising Prof. M.J. Kropff (Rector Magnificus), Prof. E.P.W. Brascamp (Chairman of the KLV alumni assocation), Dr A. Huijsman (Director of Wageningen International) and ir. R.J. Tazelaar, made a unanimous decision. These awards are presented once every four years to honour Wageningen alumni who have continued onto a remarkable career, alumni of whom Wageningen University Fund can be especially proud.
Alumnus Award for Innovative Development
The Alumnus Award for Innovative Development went to Dr Paul Kibwika from Uganda. In 2006 Dr Kibwika obtained his PhD at Wageningen University with his thesis, ?Learning to make change?. He showed that innovation competence is a pre-requisite for transforming learning, research and consultancy into social change. For both staff and students, this also requires competences beyond disciplinary expertise. The Jury especially praised the efforts of Dr Kibwika to ?make science work?.ÿIn addition, the jury appreciated his focus on young professionals as the new force that is taking responsibility for economic development in Africa.
Outstanding Alumnus award
The Outstanding Alumnus Award went to Dr Ruud Kleinpaste (1952). The jury praised Dr Kleinpaste because he makes science attractive for the general public in a creative way. His fascination for living nature brought him to New Zealand, where he become a ?ambassador for insects? on radio and television. This persona was born during the popular radio talk show Newstalk ZB, to which he was invited as a guest. In New Zealand, everybody knows him as ?the Bugman?. After his graduation in 1978, he emigrated to New Zealand, where he worked for the Forest Service at Wellington to do field research on the brown kiwi. Due to his research on the kiwi, the national symbol of New Zealand, he acquired a good reputation. From 1982 till 1996 he worked as entomologist at the New Zealand Ministry of Agriculture .
Awards
The Outstanding Alumnus Award and the Alumnus Award for Innovative Development are joint initiatives of the Wageningen University Fund, the Alumni Association KLV and Wageningen International. The aim of the Outstanding Alumnus Award is to honour a Wageningen alumnus who has gone on to a remarkable career, an alumnus who has contributed to the quality of life, with a focus on nutrition and health, durable agro systems, the living environment, poverty alleviation, social change, and has contributed n to the social debate on these themes.
The Alumnus Award for Innovative Development is presented to an alumnus who, besides having a remarkably successful career, also works (or has worked) in an international context.