Greg Mortenson speaks at Rowell award event

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Best-selling author and humanitarian Greg Mortenson will speak at the Galen and Barbara Rowell Lecture Series in San Francisco, United States on September 24.

At the lecture Mortenson will discuss his life’s work in promoting education and literacy, especially for girls, in the remote mountain regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan. Mortenson is the co-founder of the Central Asia Institute, a non-profit organisation working on these issues. He is the author of Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace, One School At A Time.

Mortenson will also pay tribute to his friends, famed adventurer and photographer Galen and his wife Barbara Rowell, who died in a plane crash in 2002. The Rowell Award for the Art of Adventure was established to celebrate the couple's accomplishments.

The programme will also include the opening of the nomination period for the 2008 Rowell Award. The award is given to an "adventurer whose artistic passion illuminates the wild places of the world, and whose accomplishments significantly benefit both the environment and the peoples who inhabit these lands and regions." The UIAA is a "Friend of the Rowell Award."

Last year's winner was adventure photographer James Balog. His latest project, the Extreme Ice Survey, involved Balog and his team installing 26 time-lapse cameras on 16 glaciers in five countries. The cameras will produce over 300,000 images via satellite to document glacial melt over the next two years.

Follow the links for more info on tickets reservations and  more information about the award and Mortenson's lecture.