Marine biologist Sylvia Earle, a Rolex Testimonee since 1982, has been a pioneer of ocean exploration for more than five decades. Her mission has always been to explore, study and protect the planet's oceans.

In 2009, she founded her initiative, Mission Blue. By identifying areas of particularly significant marine biodiversity called Hope Spots and advocating for their protection, Mission Blue are igniting public support to safeguard our oceans.

As one of the longstanding partners of the Rolex Perpetual Planet Initiative, Rolex supports Mission Blue’s goal to help protect 30 per cent of the world’s seas by 2030.

Titouan Bernicot is a French Polynesian ocean conservationist, founder and CEO of Coral Gardeners.
With the support of the Rolex Perpetual Planet Initiative, Coral Gardeners – a collective of young ocean advocates – have one shared mission: to save the reefs.

Since launching in 2017, Bernicot, a Rolex Testimonee, and the Coral Gardeners team have been bringing a new approach to raising awareness and inspiring younger audiences to see the difference that we can make by restoring our coral reefs, and in turn the wider environment. Seeking advice from experts and scientists around the world on reef restoration methods, Coral Gardeners collect fragments of resilient corals to cultivate in nurseries for years before ‘planting’ them back onto nearby reefs and monitoring the ecological impact. The team have planted over 100,000 corals and have established two international branches sites in addition to the one they already have in their home of French Polynesia.

Coral Gardeners have the largest social media presence of any reef conservation company, with over half a million followers on their Instagram account. Their stunning imagery and informative videos have reached over 200 million people in just over five years, and are geared towards a young audience, looking to the future of conservation, and hoping to spark passions around ocean protection.

First and foremost a physicist and oceanographer, Dr Helen Czerski is also an award-winning television broadcaster and writer, and was one of the ten jurors of the 2023 Rolex Awards for Enterprise.

As well as conducting extensive research, Czerski presents documentaries on physics and ocean-related topics for the BBC, and her column “Everyday Physics” regularly appears in the Wall Street Journal, while her award-winning first book, Storm in a Teacup: The Physics of Everyday Life (2016), has been translated into 14 languages. 

In 2018, Czerski won the Institute of Physics Gold Medal (William Thomson, Lord Kelvin Medal and Prize) for her work championing physics to millions worldwide.