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The 1981 Rolex Awards 
For Outstanding Enterprise 
The Rolex Awards for Enterprise is an international program to provide financial help 
and special encouragement for individuals whose projects have broken new ground 
in their chosen fields. These projects capture that spirit of enterprise 
which has been such a characteristic of the development of the Rolex watch. 
Here are the five award winners of 1981 with a resume of their projects. 
A Blueprint for Disarmament — 
Seymour Melman 
If global disarmament ever is to be achieved, one 
vital step in the process will be to convert industrial 
economics from military to civilian work. Seymour 
Melman. an American Professor of Industrial Engineering, has 
been exploring myriad technical, economic and organizational 
changes required to make such conversions work. 
As industrial economics vary widely. Professor Melman is 
formulating three representative models for conversion: the 
U.S.A. and Western Europe, the Socialist countries, and the less- 
developed countries. 
His 1981 Rolex Award for Enterprise will enable Professor 
Melman to develop his blueprints for conversion. 
Preserving Mexican Folk Music — 
■ Eduardo Llerenas 
The culture of Mexican folk music is one of the 
' richest in the world. 
' i However, due to the influence of TV, radio and 
the record player, it is a culture fast disappearing. 
With two companions. Mr. Eduardo Llerenas has made over 
eighty trips into the remotest parts of Mexico in order to 
record, compare and preserve the country’s traditional songs. 
When completed, the work of Mr. Llerenas will provide an 
accurate and lively record of the folk music of Mexico. 
His 1981 Rolex Award for Enterprise will help Mr. Llerenas 
to complete this valuable undertaking. 
Let the Sperm Whale Live — 
Milan Mirkovic 
Mr. Milan Mirkovic has devised a novel irriga- 
tion method for the growing of the jojoba bush. 
The jojoba nut contains an oil which is almost 
identical in properties to sperm whale oil and therefore could 
become a commercial alternative to sperm whale slaughter. 
However, it is only Mr. Mirkovic’s use of containers filled 
with earth and a water absorbent polymer (it holds 1,000 times 
its own weight of water, thus dramatically reducing the cost of 
irrigation) which may make the cultivation of the jojoba a com- 
mercial possibility. Mr. Mirkovic’s 1981 Rolex Award for 
Enterprise should help in saving the sperm whale. 
To Save the Snow Leopard — 
Rodney Jackson 
In the snow-covered Nepalese Himalayas lives 
| the elusive, endangered snow leopard. 
Mr. Rodney Jackson, a wildlife biologist, plans 
to capture live several specimens of these magnificent crea- 
tures and collar them with radio transmitters. Very little is 
known about the snow leopard, but we do know that it faces 
almost certain extinction as man encroaches upon its habitat. 
Mr. Jackson’s 1981 Rolex Award for Enterprise will expand 
our knowledge of the snow leopard and its environment and 
help save a beautiful species from extinction. 
Re-fertilizing the Earth — 
Andre Martin 
All over the world, vast tracts of fire-damaged 
►5^ land lie waste. To return land such as this to its 
B? original fertility is the aim Andre Martin has set 
himself. The undergrowth, brushwood and scrub, the only 
things which will grow on such land, are cleared and converted 
into an organically rich compost. 
In a successful experiment in France, twenty previously 
desolate acres have been returned to successful cultivation 
using this method. 
His 1981 Rolex Award for Enterprise is reward for Andre 
Martin's truly fertile imagination. 
Each of these five winners has received 
50,000 Swiss francs as a contribution to the ful- 
fillment of his work. Each has also received a 
specially inscribed Rolex Oyster as a tribute. 
The 1981 Rolex Awards for Enterprise: Help 
and encouragement to those who have 
demonstrated truly outstanding *? * 
enterprise. yU/ 
ROLEX 
of Geneva 
