GUEST WRITER SERIES: THE MAN BEHIND THE NOBEL PRIZE- BY MARK OMODIA

The Nobel prize is one of he most prestigious awards that can be bestowed on anyone  in the world.
 It has been awarded to a number of icons and high caliber people in various fields. It is awarded annually to individuals for outstanding contributions for humanity in chemistry,literature, peace, physics, physiology or medicine. There is also the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, which was established by Sweden's central bank in 1968. The Nobel peace prize is awarded in Norway while the rest are warded in Sweden; each by their respective Nobel committees.

Several notable people have been awarded the Nobel prize ranging from Albert Einstein to Barack Obama, Wole Soyinka to Malala Yousafzai, etc.
Nobel Laureates receive a diploma together with a gold medal and the prize money. The Diplomas are issued by hand by the King of Sweden (in the case of the Nobel peace prize, it is issued by the  Chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee). The medals are made of 18 carat gold plated with 24 carats. The prize money depends on what the foundation can afford to pay for at that given year.
The medals all have the picture of one man - Alfred Nobel, the man in whose name the awards are given.

Alfred Nobel was born into the wealthy Nobel family, a family of engineers. His brother, Ludvig was one of the wealthiest men at the time. Alfred himself didn't do badly. He also amassed a fortune for himself as an inventor, engineer and chemist. It was he who invented the dynamite. The problem however was that he was known for inventing weapons of war and destruction which made some people hold views of him as an evil man. This was evident in an obituary published in a French newspaper by someone who thought Alfred had passed away. It was his brother who had died, but the person who wrote the scathing obituary had thought it was Alfred. The obituary read 'The merchant of death is dead'. It was then it dawned on him that he was leaving a bad legacy behind and he certainly didn't want to be remembered in such light.  Thus hen he died, to the astonishment of many, Nobel willed that his fortune be used to create a series of prizes for those who confer the "greatest benefit on mankind". Nobel bequeathed 94% of his total assets, 31 million SEK (US$186 million, €150 million in 2008), to establish the five Nobel Prizes. The prize for Economic sciences came later.