18 September 2008 Prestigious Konex Award for ORT Argentina One of Argentina’s leading cultural organisations, the Konex Foundation, has recognised ORT Argentina’s educational excellence by awarding it the 2008 Merit Diploma. The Konex Foundation’s Grand Jury chose ORT Argentina to receive this honour in recognition of its outstanding performance over the past 10 years. ‘From its origins in 1936, ORT Argentina has offered an education of excellence in changing contexts and has assumed with honour, commitment and passion the responsibility of providing its services to every child, regardless of his or her socio-economic situation, even during the most critical moments that our country has undergone in the last decade,’ the Konex Foundation said. The Executive Director of ORT Argentina, Adrian Moscovich, said everyone at ORT Argentina was filled with pride and enthusiasm by the award, which was an ‘important distinction in recognition of our everyday work’. ‘As on many other occasions, our schools and institutes set an example in the field of education,’ Mr Moscovich said. ‘These achievements are the result of the work carried out by teachers on the one hand and the confidence parents have in us on the other. Our teachers are deeply committed to their work, highly professional and have a profound respect for knowledge; parents encourage us to constantly strive for excellence. We would like to share this award with all our students and graduates.’ The Konex Foundation was created in 1980 by Dr Luis Ovsejevich, the Founder and President of the Konex-Canon Company. Since then the Foundation has presented awards annually to Argentina’s most distinguished individuals and institutions and has such major sponsors as ABN-AMRO, Canon Argentina and the Deloitte Foundation. ‘The purpose was to sow in the present and reap in the future; rewarding the present in its permanent and worthy aspects so that the example of the best be a stimulus to our youth,’ Dr Ovsejevich said. The Konex Awards are presented annually, each year for a different significant activity running on a 10-year cycle. The categories are sports, entertainment, visual arts, science and technology, literature, popular music, humanities, journalism, institutions, and classical music. So, for example, in 1980, 1990 and 2000 awards were presented for those active in sports; in 1981, 1991 and 2001 for entertainment and so on. This year, ORT Argentina was selected in the category of institutions, community and companies. On its website, the Konex Foundation says: ‘The diversity of educational projects – designed and developed in the schools – reveal ORT’s fundamental and distinguishing principles, which account for its long-standing tradition. ORT has always provided stat-of-the-art solutions to meet the education and training needs of the community. The principles are oriented towards achieving personal integrity, respect for values that enable integration into society in an effective and constructive way, and the acknowledgement of the humanistic foundations of an inheritance to be preserved.’ ORT Argentina currently has more than 7,000 students and 950 teachers on two campuses in Buenos Aires. Its culture of research and development has made it the leading non-governmental contributor of high school and junior college syllabuses into Argentina’s education system. ‘ORT Argentina is one of 62 members of the World ORT family and each one of them congratulates ORT Argentina on this fine achievement,’ said World ORT Director General Robert Singer. The picture shows ORT Argentina’s Honorary President Norma de Werthein, General Secretary Dario Jaraj and Executive Director Dr Adrian Moscovich receiving the Konex Award from the Vice President of Argentina Julio Cobos.