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Sir Tom Farmer was among the award recipients Leading philanthropists have received prestigious awards for their good works in a ceremony at Holyrood. Among the six recipients of the international Andrew Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy was the Aga Khan, one of the world's wealthiest men.
The Scottish founder of Kwik Fit, Sir Tom Farmer, received his medal from First Minister Jack McConnell.

This is the first time the awards - meant to be similar to the Nobel prize - have been presented outside the US.

All the recipients received a bronze bust of the Scots-born philanthropist Andrew Carnegie and a bronze medal.

Global challenges

Anna Southall, chairwoman of the Barrow Cadbury Trust, was among those honoured, along with Eleanor Hewlett Gimon and Susan Packard Orr, on behalf of the Hewlett and Packard families.

Agnes Gund, chairwoman of the New York Museum of Modern Art, also received the accolade.

There are a lot of people who are philanthropic, philanthropic with their time, philanthropic with their energy

The awards were named after Dunfermline-born philanthropist Carnegie, whose family emigrated to the US from a life of poverty in Scotland in 1848.

He eventually gave away the equivalent of almost $15bn, establishing a family of worldwide foundations.

The Scottish Parliament played host to more than 400 guests from around the world for the awards, which form part of an international symposium on some of the major global challenges facing philanthropists and their foundations today.

Carnegie's grandson, William Thomson, told the event: 'For Andrew Carnegie philanthropy was never just about giving wealth away, what has been called the cash machine approach, his model was that of endowing foundations to be independent research and development agencies, that invest for the longer term.'

About 400 guests from across the world are attending the ceremony

Sir Tom believes we need a new spirit of philanthropy not just related to money.

He said: 'There are a lot of people who are philanthropic, philanthropic with their time, philanthropic with their energy.'

Holyrood Presiding Officer George Reid said: 'Andrew Carnegie's first achievement was to become the richest man in the world.

'His second was to give the bulk of his wealth away to stop accumulating, as he put it, and to start distributing.

'His money went, in a very Scottish way, not to the great and mighty or to advance the cause of rampant capitalism, but to the community to offer opportunity, and enrichment of life, to millions of ordinary men and women.'