Press Release
SRI-Rice Named
as a Finalist for the 2013
Katerva Award
(People's Choice voting now open!)
March 7, 2014, Ithaca, New York -- The Katerva Award highlights the most innovative projects from around the world and has been referred to as "the Nobel Prize of Sustainability."
The SRI International Network and Resources Center (SRI-Rice) at Cornell University has been selected as a finalist for the 2013 Katerva Award in the Food Security category. SRI-Rice was created at Cornell University in 2010 with funding from Jim Carrey's Better U Foundation in response to the increasing importance of the System of Rice Intensification (SRI), a climate-smart, low-cost, yield-increasing methodology that has spread from Madagascar to over 50 countries in little more than a decade. Erika Styger, Director of SRI-Rice commented, "We are glad to have this opportunity to showcase SRI through the Katerva Award. In an era of climate change and increasing stress on the world's natural resources, SRI is one of the few innovations that, without purchasing expensive inputs, can help farmers adapt to climate change, while reducing greenhouse gas emissions and sustainably increasing productivity and system resilience."
Katerva also allows the public to help choose from the finalists the innovation they feel has the most to offer the world. All 50 finalists are therefore eligible for the Katerva People's Choice Award. The public is invited to vote for the People's Choice Award from the 7th through the 28th of March, 2014, on the Katerva website. ( see the following page to cast your vote: http://katerva.net/home/2013-pc-voting/.
Please cast your vote for
SRI-Rice! The Katerva Award finalists and the winner gain significant support through Katerva's
Winner's Circle, a group of businesses and committed experts, with the aim of
implementing the winning project for maximum impact.
The 50 finalists for the 2013 Katerva Award (all categories) are: 50 Million Missing Campaign, Aflatoun, AquaSentinel, Aquion Energy, ARCHIVE Global, Aviva Investors, B LAB, Bolsa Verde do Rio de Janeiro, Bycatch Reduction, Conservation Evidence, DRACO, Duke Toilet 2 Water, EDF Climate Corps, Empower Generation, Eole Water, Equitable Origin, GiveDirectly, Growing Power, HealthPhone, IBA Hamburg, Integrity Action, Kiva U, Leveraged Freedom Chair, Lit Motors, Marinexplore, MBA Polymers, Mera Gao Micro Grid Power, Mobile for Reproductive Health, Mongabay, MPOWER D, One Billion Rising, Oxitec, Practical Action’s Zeer Pot Clay Fridge, Publish What You Pay, Rare, Riders for Health, Robot Gardner, Sabin, Sakti3, SeaChar - BioChar, Solar Ear International, Solidia Technologies, Spatial Collective, SRI International Network & Resources Center (SRI-Rice), Sustainable Preservation Initiative, The CityCar (MIT Media Lab), Vaxess Technologies, Vertical Forest, WE CARE Solar, and Zambikes - Zambulance.
For more information and to view more information on all the finalists, please go to: http://katerva.net/home/accelerate/2013_award_nom/. "To solve the complex sustainability challenges we face as stewards of our planet, will require innovative solutions across a wide range of disciplines and economic sectors. Katerva provides a much needed and novel forum for this to happen, as evidenced by the finalists for the Katerva Award," states Antonio J. Busalacchi, Jr, Director of the Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center (ESSIC) and Professor in the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Science at the University of Maryland, USA.
The Katerva Award finalists and the winner gain significant support through Katerva's Winner's Circle, a group of businesses and committed experts, with the aim of implementing the winning project for maximum impact. In a deliberation process which began in October, the Katerva nominees were submitted to a rigorous process of examination by experts in each of Katerva's ten categories: Behavioral Change, Economy, Ecosystem Conservation, Energy & Power, Food Security, Gender Equality, Human Development, Materials & Resources, Transportation, and Urban Design. (SRI-Rice was nominated in the Food Security catogory.)
The Katerva Award, now in its third year, draws upon a vast network of experts from science, business, academia, finance, and government. Once a nominee has been submitted, the project is carefully screened for eligibility. Eligible projects are then rated for validity, scalability, policy, and impact. Finalists are the top five projects from each of the ten categories. Only one project will be the Katerva Award Winner, the winner will be announced the first week of April. "Katerva is not just interested in 'good' ideas; the ideas we are after will create big changes in how we live on this planet," says Katerva's founder, innovation expert Terry Waghorn. Founded in 2010, "Katerva's approach places emphasis squarely on action for a sustainable future -- creating and implementing solutions to sustainability - related concerns," he says. Katerva is the first truly open worldwide platform for change. Katerva comes from the Latin word caterva, which means "crowd." It's our belief that the wisdom of the crowd -- energized, organized and leveraged, holds the key to the world's most pressing challenges.
For more information on Katerva or on the Katerva Award, see www.katerva.net or contact Jean Brittingham, jean@katerva.net, Phone: +1 (801) 712-6577
For more information about SRI-Rice, see our sri-rice.org, or contact sririce@cornell.edu, Phone: +1 (607) 255-8087.
