SONAM WANGCHUK

(The scientist who changed the fate of Ladakh)

Sonam Wangchuk was born in the year 1966, near Alchi in the Leh
District of Ladakh. He was not enrolled in a school until the age of 9.
His father Sonam Wangyal, a politician who later became the minister
in state government, was stationed in Srinagar. He then later joined a
school in Srinagar, since he did not understand the language here
communication was a problem. So, he escaped alone to Delhi in 1977
where he pleaded his case to the school principal at Vishesh Kendriya
Vidyalaya.

Wangchuk completed his B.Tech. in Mechanical Engineering from

National Institute of Technology Srinagar. In 1988, after his
graduation, Wangchuk (with his brother and five peers) started
Students' Educational and Cultural Movement of Ladakh (SECMOL).
The SECMOL launched Operation New Hope in collaboration with the
government education department and the village population.
Operation New Hope was a campaign to provide "culturally
appropriate and locally relevant education" and make government
schools more functional and effective.

From June 1993 until August 2005, Wangchuk also founded and
worked as the editor of Ladakh's only print magazine Ladags Melong.
In 2001, he was appointed to be an advisor for the education in the
Hill Council Government. In 2002, together with other NGO heads, he
founded Ladakh Voluntary Network (LVN), a network of Ladakhi
NGOs, and served in its executive committee as the secretary till 2005.
He was appointed to the Drafting Committee of the Ladakh Hill
Council Government’s Vision Document Ladakh 2025 and entrusted
with the formulation of the policy on Education and Tourism in 2004.
In 2005, Wangchuk was appointed as a member in the National
Governing Council for Elementary Education in the Ministry of Human
Resource Development, Government of India. From 2007 to 2010,
Wangchuk worked as an education advisor for MS, a Danish NGO
working to support the Ministry of Education for education reforms.
One of his major achievements are his ice stupas, In January 2014,
Wangchuk started a project called the Ice Stupa. His aim was to find a
solution to the water crisis being faced by the farmers of Ladakh in the
critical planting months of April and May before the natural glacial
melt waters start flowing. By the end of February in 2014, they had
successfully built a two-story prototype of an ice stupa which could
store roughly 150,000 liters of winter stream water which nobody
wanted at the time.

The different awards won by Sonam Wangchuk were:

2018 Ramon Magsaysay Award

2018 Honorary D.Litt. by Symbiosis International.
2018 Eminent Technologist of the Himalayan Region by IIT Mandi.
2017 Indians for Collective Action (ICA) Honor Award, San Francisco,
CA.
2017 GQ Men of the Year Awards, Social Entrepreneur of the Year.
2017 Global Award for Sustainable Architecture.
2017 State Award for outstanding environmentalist by J&K Govt.
2016 Rolex Award for Enterprise.
2016 International Terra Award for best earth building.
2014 UNESCO Chair Earthen Architecture, by CRATerre France.
2008 Real Heroes Award by CNN-IBN TV.
2004 The Green Teacher Award by Sanctuary Asia.
2002 Ashoka Fellowship for Social Entrepreneurship, by Ashoka USA.
2001 Man of the Year by The Week.
1996 Governor's Medal for educational reform in Jammu and Kashmir.