Armenian-American human rights strategist Greg Asbed is among the 24 recipients of the 2017 John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation fellowship—better known as the “genius” grant, according to TheArmenianWeekly.

The MacArthur Foundation announced the winners of the fellowship—each selected for having “shown extraordinary originality and dedication in their creative pursuits and a marked capacity for self-direction.”

Asbed is developing a new model—worker-driven social responsibility (WSR)—for improving conditions for low-wage workers.

WSR is a bottom-up approach that ensures human rights are respected in the workplace; workers play a central role in establishing work condition standards and codes of conduct and have transparent channels for monitoring and enforcing those standards.