Award for technological solutions to tackle basic supply challenges

The Siemens Stiftung (foundation) has launched a worldwide competition aimed at identifying and granting better access to appropriate technological solutions as one of the key levers for sustainable development. The ‘empowering people. Award’ was announced at the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, Rio+20.

Inventors and developer teams are called upon to submit technical products or solutions that help combat existential problems in basic supply. The entries will be evaluated and made accessible to practitioners on a central knowledge database empowering more people to actively improve social and economic environments.

Innovators and developer teams can submit a proven product or solution that can help people in combating existential basic supply problems. Entries can be filed in the categories of Water & Waste Water, Energy, Food & Agriculture, Waste Management & Recycling, Housing & Construction, Healthcare, and Information & Communication Technology. The main objective of the competition is to make these solutions more easily accessible to practitioners and to empower more people to actively improve the social and economic environment.

The competition will honour the winner at an awards ceremony in June 2013 with a sum of €50,000 (approx AU$63,000). The second prize is valued at €30,000 (AU$38,000), the third at €20,000 (AU$25,000) and a further €5000 EUR (AU$6000) will be awarded to 20 runners up. The entries will be valued by an interdisciplinary and international jury, and all intellectual properties will remain with the inventor or team.

The entries submitted in the competition will be used to form the basis of a long-term knowledge database that, alongside research possibilities, will generate direct interaction between the public and private sector as well as the world of academia, including developers and practitioners. Furthermore, the entrants and their projects will become visible to international partners and investors. The platform serves to link people with the aim of attaining collaborative success in development ventures.

Ulrike Wahl, Managing Director of the Siemens Stiftung, stated, “As a foundation active in projects extending basic services to those in need, we are convinced that technological solutions are a key lever to sustainable development. The database we want to build is geared equally to bringing inventors in touch with organisations funding their idea, as well as empowering inventors and practitioners to link-up directly and thus speed-up processes to tackle basic supply challenges. We invite everybody who has invented a technological solution for solving basic supply challenges to take part in the competition.”

For updates on the competition, visit the website, like the Facebook page or follow it on Twitter. The deadline for entries is 31 December 2012 at noon EST.