NEW YORK, Dec. 11, 2012 /PRNewswire via African Press Organization (APO)/ — The Financial Times and Citi are pleased to announce that Community Cooker Foundation has been named global winner in the inaugural FT/Citi Ingenuity Awards: Urban Ideas in Action programme. A distinguished panel of judges selected the Kenyan not-for-profit organisation as the global winner for its development of an innovative and practical waste-burning stove, which holds tremendous potential for environmental, economic and social change in low resource environments.
In addition to the global award, winners were recognised in four categories — education, energy, healthcare and infrastructure — for demonstrating particular originality, efficiency and impact in meeting urban challenges in their respective fields. Winners included: College Possible (Education), Community Cooker Foundation (Energy), GlaxoSmithKline New Citizen (Healthcare) and JCDecaux – Velib’ (Infrastructure).
The FT/Citi Ingenuity Awards aim to recognise leaders, teams, organisations and community groups that have developed innovative solutions to benefit cities, citizens and urban communities. The awards, sponsored by Citi, were presented last week at an awards dinner in New York where Dame Zaha Hadid, DBE, Founder, Zaha Hadid Architects, and Dr. Anne-Marie Slaughter, Bert G. Kerstetter ’66 University Professor of Politics and International Affairs, Princeton University, delivered keynote remarks.
“We are delighted to be celebrating so many innovative and creative ideas that have the ability to change urban life for the better, in ways both large and small,” said Martin Dickson, US Managing Editor of the Financial Times. “Now more than ever, cities around the globe face the tremendous challenge of providing basic services and infrastructure to booming populations, often with extremely limited resources. The inaugural winners of this award represent an impressive pool of organisations working to achieve that goal.”
“We are pleased to congratulate the winners, and all the finalists, for developing urban solutions that are innovative, scalable and replicable,” said Francesco Vanni d’Archirafi, CEO, Citi Transaction Services. “Enabling progress has been Citi’s central mission for 200 years. We are proud to recognize those who share our commitment to help cities thrive and strengthen the communities where we live and work.”
The judging panel included:
• David Adjaye, OBE, Principal Architect, Adjaye Architects
• Professor Abhijit Banerjee, Professor, MIT and Co-author, Poor Economics
• John Bowis, OBE, Honorary President, Health First Europe
• Sir Terry Farrell, CBE, International Architect & Design Champion and Director, Terry Farrell and Partners
• Reinier de Graaf, Partner, OMA
• Dame Zaha Hadid, DBE, Founder, Zaha Hadid Architects (Honorary President of the judging committee, non-voting)
• Edwin Heathcote, Architecture and Design Critic, Financial Times (co-chair)
• Bruno Lanvin, Executive Director, INSEAD eLab (co-chair)
• Professor Carlo Ratti, Professor, MIT and Founding Partner, Carlo Ratti Associati
• Luanne Zurlo, Founder and President, Worldfund
Submissions were received from 41 countries, including: Argentina, Australia, Bahrain, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Croatia, Denmark, Ecuador, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Guatemala, Honduras, India, Indonesia, Japan, Kenya, Lebanon, Lithuania, Macedonia, Mexico, Netherlands, Nicaragua, Nepal, Pakistan, Peru, Poland, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland, Uganda, U.A.E., the United Kingdom, the United States and Uruguay.
For more details on the FT/Citi Ingenuity Awards, please visit www.ft.com/ingenuity.
Video and photos from the event will be available upon request.
2012 FT/Citi Ingenuity Award winners:
Community Cooker Foundation
The Community Cooker operates on a simple principle: young locals collect rubbish, which is burned in the cooker at high temperature levels. The heat generated is used for cooking, sterilizing and industrial purposes. The cooker has considerably improved the quality of life of slum dwellers by minimizing waste, reducing emissions from cooking, providing a cheaper alternative to wood fuel and creating youth employment.
Kenyan architects Planning Systems Service created the concept, which is now managed by the Community Cooker Foundation, a not-for-profit organization. The cooker currently has one prototype in operation in one of Nairobi’s largest slums but is already being replicated in other areas in Kenya and in Mombassa. The Foundation has received many enquiries from other countries which are keen to replicate this simple and effective concept.
College Possible
Creating a vital support network, College Possible helps ensure that low-income students achieve a post secondary degree and break the cycle of multi generational poverty, enabling them to have a positive impact on the success of their urban communities.
College Possible uses the national service model of AmeriCorps to provide five key services to low-income students who have the potential to go to college, but will struggle to do so without help. It provides intensive ACT/SAT preparation, assists college application, gives financial aid consulting, provides guidance in the transition to college and offers support towards completion of their college degree.
GlaxoSmithKline New Citizen
The GSK New Citizen Health Care Project is an innovative 100-square metre urban centre designed to integrate migrant populations into city life through the delivery of community health promotion, healthcare education and health services.
Launched in 2009 in Sanlin Town, Shanghai, the centre is largely operated by professionals and volunteers from migrant farming families. It was established as a long-term and sustainable platform to build community support networks, promote positive behaviour transformation, and improve targeted community health. The centre organizes training, workshops, family activities and on-site services to assist migrant workers to adapt to city life and become more involved in urban society.
JCDecaux – Velib’
The Velib’ project, launched by JCDecaux, put cycling at the heart of urban mobility, making self-service bicycle systems an important complement to public transport. The concept is based on three core principles; developing a system that is easy to use, available everywhere and affordable.
Velib’ enables individuals to hire a self-service bicycle for an indefinite time and leave it in the station of their choice at the end of their journey. The scale, quality and scope of Velib’ made it a showcase for bicycle hire schemes and has been replicated worldwide.
2012 FT/Citi Ingenuity Award category finalists:
Education:
Abhyas Trust – Power of Seeing, India
Asociacion Aprendo Contigo, Peru
City of Dubrovnik – Educational Vertical, Croatia
College Possible, United States
Sustainable Cities Initiative, United States
Energy:
City of Houston – Green Office Challenge, United States
Community Cooker Foundation, Kenya
Proterra, United States
The Energy and Resources Institute, India
Tokyo Metropolitan Government, Japan
Healthcare:
Child Eye Care Charitable Trust, India
GlaxoSmithKline New Citizen, China
Pro Mujer, Nicaragua
Protect Your Child, Egypt
Infrastructure:
Bitcarrier, Spain
Ikhayalami, South Africa
JCDecaux – Velib’, France
ORE Design + Technology, United States
For further information, please contact:
US:
Ryann Gastwirth
Financial Times
T: + 1 917 551 5094
E: ryann.gastwirth@ft.com
Liz Fogarty
Citi
T: +1 212 559 0486
UK/EMEA:
Kristina Eriksson
Financial Times
T: +44 (0)20 7873 4961
E: kristina.eriksson@ft.com
About the Financial Times:
The Financial Times, one of the world’s leading business news organisations, is recognised internationally for its authority, integrity and accuracy. Providing essential news, comment, data and analysis for the global business community, the FT has a combined paid print and digital circulation of more than 600,000 (Deloitte assured, Q3 2012) and a combined print and online average daily readership of 2.1 million people worldwide (PwC assured, May 2012). FT.com has more than 5 million registered users and over 312,000 paying digital subscribers. The newspaper has a global print circulation of 293,326 (ABCs, October 2012).
About Citi:
Citi, the leading global bank, has approximately 200 million customer accounts and does business in more than 160 countries and jurisdictions. Citi provides consumers, corporations, governments and institutions with a broad range of financial products and services, including consumer banking and credit, corporate and investment banking, securities brokerage, transaction services, and wealth management.
Additional information may be found at www.citigroup.com | Twitter: @Citi | YouTube: www.youtube.com/citi | Blog: http://new.citi.com | Facebook: www.facebook.com/citi | LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/citi
About Citi for Cities:
Citi for Cities is an initiative that harnesses the best of Citi across the globe to enable cities to become more efficient, by providing financing that facilitates commerce and modernization, and by empowering citizens to access services that enhance liveability and prosperity. Citi aims to help cities achieve their ambitions across the key ecosystems that power a city including administration, roads and transit, ports of entry, energy and utilities, workplace and education, health and safety and regeneration and development. Citi’s span of engagement with cities includes public and private sectors, the financial sector and citizens and the communities in which they live. For more information, please visit www.citiforcities.com.
About the FT/Citi Ingenuity Awards
More than half of the world’s population lives in cities today, a number which is expected to rise in the decades ahead. As a result, cities have a pressing need to address the challenges of urbanisation and find solutions that modernise infrastructure, improve efficiency, enhance quality of life and foster sustainable growth and development.
The FT/Citi Ingenuity Awards: Urban Ideas in Action, a global programme sponsored by Citi, was developed to recognise leaders, teams, organisations and community groups that have developed groundbreaking solutions to urban challenges that benefit cities, citizens and urban communities in the fields of education, energy, healthcare and infrastructure.
Criteria and metrics for the Awards were developed by INSEAD, one of the world’s leading and largest graduate business schools. All entries were reviewed by the FT and INSEAD for qualification. As sponsor, Citi did not review or judge submissions.
Submissions were reviewed based on a range of criteria, including originality, impact, efficiency and outcomes.
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