Young Entrepreneurs Driving Social Change with Technology will be
Celebrated at Techonomy for their Achievements Addressing Social Issues
Company Website:
http://www.staples.com/community
ARLINGTON, Va. -- (Business Wire)
Ashoka,
the world’s community of leading social entrepreneurs, and Staples,
Inc. (NASDAQ: SPLS), announced today the winners of the fifth annual
Staples/Ashoka Youth Social Entrepreneur (YSE) Competition. The global
competition highlights youth-led organizations using innovation and
technology to address social issues affecting their communities, and is
part of Ashoka’s Youth
Venture®, an initiative that identifies and fosters young
entrepreneurs all over the world who are creating positive change.
This year, the competition received hundreds of entries from 50
countries addressing a diverse range of issues, from the environment to
healthcare and education. The competition applauds exceptional young
people and their unique use of technology to make a positive impact in
their community and the world.
The 2011 competition winners include:
- Vineet Singal, 21, United States, is the founder of Anjna
Patient Education, which provides health education programs to
free health clinics to help disadvantaged and low-income patients
learn about nutrition, diet and a healthy lifestyle. Vineet previously
volunteered at several free clinics and witnessed firsthand the high
volume of patients with preventable conditions like stress-related
illnesses and obesity and the lack of health education and patient
counseling available. With Anjna Patient Education, Vineet is
determined to break the cycle of chronic, preventable diseases by
developing interactive health education applications for underserved
populations.
- Eden Full, 19, Canada, is the founder of Roseicollis
Technologies, a social enterprise designed to implement unique
technologies in developing and emerging markets. The organization’s
primary technology is the SunSaluter, a cost-effective solar panel
rotator that increases the efficiency of solar panels to bring
alternative energy and electricity to developing countries. In August
2010, Roseicollis Technologies provided electricity, for the first
time, to two villages in Kenya to help improve the lives of more than
1,000 residents. The villages can now safely collect firewood, charge
cell phones and power radios to remain updated on current events. Eden
and Roseicollis Technologies aim to install the SunSaluter in
additional countries, including Tanzania, Uganda and Western China.
- Karthik Naralasetty, 22, India, created www.socialblood.org,
a social media platform to help address the blood shortage crisis by
connecting blood donors and recipients of the same blood type through
facebook. After witnessing a family’s struggle to find O+ blood donors
every 25 days to treat its four year-old child’s rare medical
condition, Karthik knew he needed to take action. Karthik brought
Socialblood.org to life and today, this central platform that matches
blood donors with recipients has more than 500 users with future plans
to expand globally.
- Vivek Nair, 23, Singapore, founded Damascus Fortune, an
organization based in India that has developed a technology to produce
carbon nanotube and carbon nanofibers from industrial flue gas. The
technology converts carbon emissions from automotives and industrial
plants such as rice mills, power plants and petrochemicals to produce
carbon nanotubes and carbon nanofibers, which are used for composites,
nano-electronics, optics, energy storage and many other science
applications. Vivek and his team of 15 engineering students are
working on further developing the technology, lowering the cost of
production, and finding new applications that will help reduce climate
change. Damascus Fortune aims to install this technology in almost all
flue gas emitting industrial plants and automobiles in India,
Singapore, China, EU, UK and USA to reduce global warming in a large
scale.
“This year’s Staples/Ashoka YSE Competition demonstrates how youth today
are uniquely leveraging technology to create lasting and impactful
solutions for a better world,” said Gretchen Zucker, executive director
of Ashoka’s Youth Venture. “We are pleased to recognize these students
and hope their achievements inspire more youth to become changemakers.”
“The winners of this year’s Staples/Ashoka YSE Competition are an
innovative and tech-savvy group that will continue to drive social
change and make a positive impact on communities for years to come,”
said Amy Shanler, director of community relations for Staples, Inc. “We
look forward to celebrating their entrepreneurial spirit at the
Techonomy conference and helping each venture grow and address critical
social problems around the world.”
The four winners will receive an all-expenses-paid trip to Techonomy
2011, a prestigious conference for technology leaders featuring the
founders and executive leaders for global technology innovators such as
LinkedIn, Mozilla and Salesforce.com. The conference is being held
November 13-15, 2011 in Tucson, Arizona. Winners will also receive $500
to support their Venture’s development.
During the Techonomy conference, the grand prize winner will be selected
by vote after a pitch off, and awarded an “Around the World Learning
Tour” that will provide an opportunity to travel the globe and meet
other youth social entrepreneurs, Ashoka Fellows and Staples associates
to further develop their venture’s impact. The four winners were
selected by an elite panel of judges, including: Christine Putur, senior
vice president and chief information officer, Staples, Inc.; JJ Ramberg,
host of MSNBC’s “Your Business;” David Kirkpatrick, chief executive
officer, Techonomy Media; Armelle Carminati-Rabasse, human capital and
diversity global managing director, Accenture; Mohammed Barry, winner of
the 2010 Staples YSE Competition; and Gabi Zedlmayer, vice president,
global social innovation, Hewlett-Packard.
Since 2006, Staples Foundation and Ashoka have supported young
entrepreneurs throughout the world as they work to create positive
change. Through more than $3 million in funding, Staples has enabled
Ashoka’s Youth Venture to expand to eight countries in North America,
South America and Europe and has helped 50,000 youth volunteers launch
and operate 2,000 ventures that have had impact on nearly 200,000 people.
For additional information on the 2011 Staples/Ashoka YSE Competition
winners, please visit the competition web site at: www.ashokayouthcompetition.org.
About Youth Venture
Ashoka’s Youth Venture aims to help an entire generation of young people
develop as changemakers, who will improve their communities now and
throughout their lives. Youth Venture inspires and supports teams of
young people to launch and lead their own civic-minded organizations and
businesses. Youth Venture was created by Ashoka, the global pioneer of
the social entrepreneurship sector and the world’s biggest network of
changemakers. We believe that the greatest contribution we can make to
the world is to increase dramatically the number of changemakers today
and in every future generation. This is the key factor for success for
every part of society, from a school to a company to an entire country.
Ashoka’s Youth Venture operates in 18 countries and online at www.youthventure.org.
About Ashoka
Ashoka is the world’s community of leading social
entrepreneurs—individuals with innovative and practical ideas for
addressing social needs. Working with these social entrepreneurs, Ashoka
builds communities of innovators who work collectively to transform
society and design new ways for the social sector to become more
productive, entrepreneurial and globally integrated. For more
information, please visit www.ashoka.org.
About Staples in the Community
Staples contributes to educational and youth-oriented community efforts,
from literacy and mentoring to career skills development, through
in-kind and monetary donations and grants from Staples Foundation, the
private charitable arm of Staples, Inc. Through its community relations
efforts, Staples and Staples Foundation have helped more than 6,000
organizations in 2,000 communities across 27 countries. Community
relations is also an integral component of Staples Soul, which
recognizes the connection between long-term business success and the
impact Staples has on associates, communities and the planet. For more
information, visit www.staples.com/community.
Contacts:
for Staples, Inc.
Lynda Curtis, 781-559-0423
lynda.curtis@rfbinder.com
or
for
Ashoka’s Youth Venture
Tina Choi, +44 20 8816 7988
tchoi@ashoka.org
Source: Staples, Inc.
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