Planet savers win the Earthshot
Five projects seeking novel solutions to the world’s environmental challenges each won £1 million (nearly R23m) this week.
The Earthshot Prize awards ceremony was held in Cape Town this week, attended by its founder Britain’s Prince William.
William set up the annual Earthshot Prize to find innovations to combat climate and other green issues in 2020, inspired by US President John F Kennedy’s 1960s “moonshot” project which led to the 1969 lunar landing.
This was the first time the ceremony had been held in Africa.
“The continent, despite contributing the least to global warming, is the most vulnerable to its impact,” William said at the ceremony.
Among the winners was US company Advanced Thermovoltaic Systems, whose compact thermovoltaic panels can be used to convert heat generated by the cement and steel industries into electricity. The inventors stumbled upon the innovation by chance: the company’s founders were originally developing solar panels. They realised their panels were producing electricity without the sun’s rays and shifted their focus to thermovoltaics.
Kenyan company Keep IT Cool was awarded for its solar-powered electric coolers for fishers. The portable iceboxes help maintain cold-storage conditions even when far from the energy grid, greatly reducing food waste while supporting the incomes of fishing people.
“We are here to champion the dreamers, the thinkers and the innovators from every walk of life who share an ambition to build a better, more sustainable world,” William said.
“I believe our world can be rich in possibility, in hope and in optimism. That is why the Earthshot Prize exists ‒ to champion the game changers, the inventors, the makers, the creatives, the leaders.”
William said earlier his wife Katherine was doing “really well” and had been amazing in a year when she had undergone preventative chemotherapy for cancer and was still recovering. He made the trip without her.