The Tech Awards to Honor Global Innovators Who Use Technology to Benefit Humanity | Source: Tech Museum of Innovation, Sept 26, 2012
SAN JOSE, CA–(Marketwire – Sep 26, 2012) – Each year, nearly four million newborn babies never live past their first days — all for lack of warmth. At least a billion people globally have limited — or no access — to clean water. And while almost half the world’s population cooks with wood or other biomass fuels, indoor-air pollution generated by cooking fires contributes to the premature deaths of nearly two million people annually.
Enter the “techmanitarians” — a dozen international innovators who toil with unequaled resolve to eliminate these and other persistent global challenges. Their noble achievements will be recognized Thursday, Nov. 15, 2012 at the Santa Clara Convention Center during Silicon Valley’s leading awards program, The Tech Awards, presented by Applied Materials in association with the Center for Science, Technology, and Society at Santa Clara University.
Three newborns are swaddled in life-saving, low-cost infant warmers specifically designed by 2012 laureate, Embrace, to address the needs of babies suffering from hypothermia.
Some of the 2012 award winners include:
Intel Environment Award
Arup K. SenGupta
Transforming Arsenic Crisis into an Economic Enterprise
Southeast Asia; India
http://nciia.org/node/1851
Problem: According to World Health Organization (WHO), over 200 million resource-poor people are threatened with arsenic poisoning by drinking contaminated groundwater in Cambodia, Nepal, India, Bangladesh and Vietnam.
Solution: Use of appropriate simple-to-operate technology in rural setting to transform arsenic crisis into an economic enterprise while protecting human health.
Impact: Over 200,000 people including school children are benefiting in arsenic-affected countries.
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Safe Agua Peru, Art Center College
Peru
Problem: In Cerro Verde, a slum on the outskirts of Lima, Peru, 30,000 people live without access to running water and sanitation.
Solution: Design and co-create with Cerro Verde families, innovative and cost-effective products tested by the community and implemented by Techo, a Latin American NGO dedicated to working with families living in extreme poverty.
Impact: Empower families and communities through responsible design to conserve water, reduces illness and generate social, cultural, and economic change.
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BioLite
Global
Biolitestove.com
Problem: Every year almost 2 million people die prematurely from indoor pollution caused by smoky open cooking fires; these same fires contribute more black carbon than all the cars and trucks in the world combined.
Solution: The BioLite Homestove is a low-cost, highly efficient wood-burning stove that dramatically reduces smoke and harmful black carbon emissions while reducing fuel needs by 50 percent.
Impact: A single HomeStove pays for itself in six to seven months, and lowers the rates of potentially fatal respiratory diseases while saving 2,000 pounds of wood per year and averting the C02 emissions of a compact car.
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Eco-Fuel Africa
Africa
Ecofuelafrica.com
Problem: Clean cooking fuel is inaccessible for 30 million people in Uganda and 28 million poor farmers have no access to fertilizers.
Solution: Simple, locally made technology that can be used by local people to convert sourced farm and municipal waste into clean cooking fuel and organic fertilizers.
Impact: 6,000 families already benefiting from the technology, with 10,000 more expected to be reached by the end of 2013.
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Simpa Networks
India
Simpanetworks.com
Problem: 400 million people in India, and more than 1.5 billion worldwide are without access to reliable electricity.
Solution: Simple, affordable, pay-as-you-use pricing and mobile payment for off-grid solar energy solutions.
Impact: By 2015, more than 250,000 households with access to clean energy, 6.5 megawatts of distributed solar power installed, more than 160,000 tons of CO2 displaced.
