THE SIR ARTHUR CLARKE INNOVATOR AWARDEE

CANDACE JOHNSON

For her vision and leadership changing the world’s ability to communicate using Space to first provide Universal Access to then Accessing the Universe.

Candace Johnson is a serial global infrastructure, network and innovation entrepreneur and investor. She is Co-Founder of one of the world’s largest satellite system SES (Société Européenne des Satellites), Europe’s first private satellite communications network Loral-Teleport Europe, the world’s first Internet based online service Europe Online, Oceania Women’s Network Satellite (OWNSAT), a founding investor in the Kacific Satellite System.

Ms. Johnson is also Founding President of the VATM, the Association of Private Telecom Operators in Germany and Founding President of the Global Telecom Women’s Network (GTWN). Currently, Candace is Chair of Advisory Board and Partner of Seraphim Space Fund, Founding Vice Chair of NorthStar Earth and Space, and Non-Executive Director of VUSION, the world’s leading IOT/Electronic Shelf Labelling group. Ms. Johnson is a member of the Executive Board of the ICC, International Chamber of Commerce, Member Saudi Space Agency Advisory Council, Vice President of Institut EuropIA, the European Institute of Artificial Intelligence. She was also Vice-Chair of the B 20 Task Force on Technology, Innovation and R & D for 2023. She is most pleased to be joining the Singapore Space Agency Think Tank Council.

She has been decorated by the Luxembourg Government with the Commander of the Order of Merit and the Officer of the Oak Leaf Crown as well as being decorated by the German Government with the Officer of the Federal Order of Merit. Ms. Johnson has received numerous Lifetime Achievement Awards from such prestigious organizations as the World Communication Awards, Women in Aerospace, The International Alliance of Women and the Global Telecom Women’s Network, (GTWN). Ms. Johnson has an honorary doctorate from the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. a master’s with honors from the Sorbonne and Stanford and an undergraduate degree from Vassar College.

THE SIR ARTHUR CLARKE LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARDEE

EMMANUELLE CHARPENTIER

Emmanuelle Charpentier is founder, scientific and managing director and head of administration of the Max Planck Unit for the Science of Pathogens and honorary professor at Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany. Prior to her current appointments, she was scientific director at the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology, Berlin; Alexander von Humboldt professor, head of department at the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research, Braunschweig and full professor at the Hannover Medical School, Germany; visiting and associate professor at the Laboratory for Molecular Infection Medicine Sweden (EMBL Partnership), Umeå University, Sweden; associate professor at the Max F. Perutz Laboratories, and guest and assistant professor at the Institute of Microbiology and Genetics, University of Vienna, Austria. Emmanuelle held several research associate positions in the US: The Rockefeller University, New York University Medical Center and Skirball Institute of Biomolecular Medicine, New York, and St. Jude
Children’s Research Hospital, Memphis. She received her education in microbiology, biochemistry and genetics at the University Pierre and Marie Curie and the Pasteur Institute in Paris, France. Emmanuelle has been widely recognized for her groundbreaking research that laid the foundations for the revolutionary CRISPR-Cas9 genome engineering technology. She has received numerous prestigious international awards and honors, and is an elected member of national and international scientific academies. She is co-founder of CRISPR Therapeutics and ERS Genomics with Rodger Novak and Shaun Foy.

THE SIR ARTHUR CLARKE IMAGINATION IN SERVICE TO SOCIETY AWARDEE

CHARLIE JANE ANDERS

Charlie Jane Anders is the author of Lessons in Magic and Disaster, coming August 2025 from Tor Books. Her other novels include All the Birds in the Sky, The City in the Middle of the Night and the young-adult Unstoppable trilogy. She’s also the author of the short story collection Even Greater Mistakes, and Never Say You Can’t Survive, a book about how to use creative writing to get through hard times.
She’s won the Hugo, Nebula, Sturgeon, Lambda Literary, Crawford and Locus Awards. She co-created Escapade, a transgender superhero, for Marvel Comics and wrote her into the long-running New Mutants comic. And she’s currently the science fiction and fantasy book reviewer for the Washington Post. With Annalee Newitz, she co-hosts the podcast Our Opinions Are Correct.