Professor Sachs is in the forefront of the challenges of economic development, poverty alleviation, and globalization, promoting policies to help all parts of the world to benefit from expanding economic opportunities and wellbeing while ensuring environmental sustainability. He has been a senior advisor to governments in all parts of the world, and has worked with international agencies, businesses, and humanitarian organizations to forge new strategies for sustainable development.

As Director of the Earth Institute, Prof. Sachs leads a large-scale effort to integrate the sciences including climatology, hydrology, engineering, economics, geography, and public health into a new field of sustainable development. In this capacity, he has helped to launch major new education programs, public outreach, and public policies, to promote the practical application of inter-disciplinary knowledge to solve global problems.

Sachs is author of hundreds of scholarly articles and many books, including the New York Times bestsellers Common Wealth (www.commonwealthsachs.org) (Penguin, 2008) and The End of Poverty (www.earth.columbia.edu/pages/endofpoverty/index) (Penguin, 2005). Sachs is a member of the Institute of Medicine and is a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research. He has twice been named among the 100 most influential (www.earth.columbia.edu/sitefiles/
File/about/ director/documents/Time_100_2005.pdf) leaders in the world by Time Magazine. He was awarded the Padma Bhushan, a high civilian honor bestowed by the Indian Government, in 2007. Sachs lectures regularly around the world and was the 2007 BBC Reith Lecturer (www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/reith2007). Prior to joining Columbia, he spent over twenty years at Harvard University. A native of Detroit, Michigan, Sachs received his B.A.(1976), M.A. (1978), and Ph.D. (1980) degrees at Harvard University.

Spridningseffektiv entreprenör

Efter ettan kommer som bekant tvåan. Sedan blir det svårare. Inte att räkna, men väl att som entreprenör kunna/vilja/våga ge sig på ännu ett projekt

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Vad har Kunskapspriset
inneburit för dig?

Det har inneburit oerhört många positiva saker. Först och främst var det ju ett erkännande och ett kvitto på att jag lyckats med något. Priset har också öppnat dörrar som gjort att jag kunnat gå vidare och fortsatt inspirera lärare.

» Några frågor till en pristagare

Kunskapens dag 2009 började redan 7.45 på morgonen. Då fanns Kunskapsprisets ordförande Arne Ekman tillsammans med två av årets mottagare av Kunskapspriset i SVT:s morgonsoffa.