The recipient of this year’s Inamori Ethics Prize is Beatrice Mtetwa, a human rights lawyer who has spent the last 20 years defending journalists and fighting for a free press in her home country of Zimbabwe. 

In her remarks at a ceremony on Sept. 7 at Severance Hall in Cleveland, she said, “in one’s career, it does not matter how much wealth you make, but how much good you do.”

First awarded in 2008, the Inamori Ethics Prize honors outstanding international ethical leaders who have used their influence and actions to greatly improve the condition of humankind. 

In honor of Mtetwa’s acceptance of the award, The Sound of Ideas recently aired an hourlong show on Mtetwa’s fight for press freedom in Zimbabwe and the Cleveland Plain Dealer covered the award citing her long history of defending the elementary civil and human rights in her country.

Knight Foundation is a sponsor of the prize.