S'pore engineering students win global innovation award
MUMBAI - THREE budding Singaporean engineers, along with two Indian and two Malaysian engineering students, have won an international award for an innovation that could save poor farmers in India from financial distress.
They won the prestigious Mondialogo Engineering Award for 2006-07 and prize money of 20,000 euros (S$42,000) at a ceremony in Mumbai on Monday for their project titled 'Economic Improvement of Indian farmers by Solar Processing of Agro-Products'.
First year National University of Singapore students Veerappan Swaminathan, Muhammad Ibnur Rashad and Tan Yi Han from Singapore; Malaysians Tan Huei Ming and Set Ying Ting; and Indians Vaibhav Tidke and Darshan Mehta of the University Institute of Chemical Technology in Mumbai, have developed a fruit processing technology using solar dryers.
The technology also uses solar energy to store fruits and vegetables for a longer time.
In a country where indebtedness has driven hundreds of farmers to take their lives in desperation, the technology provides an inexpensive way to extend the shelf life of fresh agricultural produce, helping farmers to get a better price and earn extra income.
The innovation was judged by a seven-member international jury of prominent scientists as among one of the 10 best proposals out of the entries from 89 countries.
After receiving the award, Mr Swaminathan said he and his team were now keen to use the prize money to offer the technology to as many villages as possible in the western Indian state of Maharashtra, which has seen a rise in suicides by farmers in recent years.
809 entries from 89 countries
- The award invites engineering students to create project proposals that address the United Nations Millennium Development Goals towards improving the quality of life in the developing world.
- There were 809 student groups from 89 countries registered for this year's awards, twice as many compared with the inaugural contest in 2004-05.
- Each team was asked to actively engage in international cooperation and intercultural dialogue over a six-month period, from December 2006 to May 2007, to propose practical, high-quality engineering projects for the benefit of local communities.
SOURCE: WWW.MONDIALOGO.ORG
'As we were developing a technology for rural India, it had to be compatible with the rural culture. With the help of our Indian team members, who had a more intimate understanding of the problems, the proposal was a hit with the farmers,' he said.
The award, instituted in 2002-03, is an initiative by German company DaimlerChrysler and Unesco to promote an 'exchange of knowledge between engineering students of different continents'.
Other award-winning proposals, which also received 20,000 euros in prize money, included technology for enabling sustainable power and water supply in tsunami-hit areas of Indonesia; safe drinking water in Cambodia, where arsenic and microbial contamination is a big problem; and micro-hydro power generation in Nepal.
More than 3,200 engineering students from across the world took part in the competition. They formed 200 teams, each consisting of two groups - one from a developing country and the other from an industrialised nation.
Of these, 20 teams received 'honourable mention' and 5,000 euros each.
