UNESCO - Finalists chosen for “Mondialogo Engineering Award”

Finalists chosen for “Mondialogo Engineering Award”

Editorial Contact:	Sue Williams, Press Relations Section, tel. +33 (0)1 45 68 17 06 - Email

16-03-2005 4:15 pm An international jury has nominated the finalists for the “Mondialogo Engineering Award”, the first worldwide intercultural contest seeking ideas for sustainable technical improvements in developing countries. Forty project ideas from international universities, selected from 111 proposals, have now been short-listed for one of up to 20 awards totalling 300,000 euros in prize money. The winners will be announced during an international ceremony at the end of May in Berlin. Assessment of the projects was based on the criteria of technical excellence, sustainability, feasibility and intercultural dialogue within the project group. More than 1,700 young engineers and students from 79 countries registered for the contest and formed 412 international teams.

The “Mondialogo Engineering Award”, an initiative launched by DaimlerChrysler and UNESCO, aims to promote dialogue among civilizations. The initiative calls on students from industrial and developing countries to work together on technical proposals addressing the UN Millennium Development Goals, particularly the eradication of poverty and the promotion of environmentally sustainable development.

The finalists include teams from Asia/Pacific, Africa, Arab states, Latin America/Caribbean, North America and Europe.

The international jury includes Peggy Oti-Boateng (Director of the Technology Consultancy Centre at Kwame Nkrumah University, Ghana), Shirley Malcom, USA, (Head of Education and Human Resources for the American Association for the Advancement of Science), Lee-Yee Cheong from Malaysia (President of the World Federation of Engineering Organizations, WFEO),. Wei Yu (Director of the Research Center for Learning Sciences, Southeast University, China) and Gülsün Saglamer (Istanbul Technical University, Turkey). Chairmen of the Jury are Deputy Director-General of UNESCO. Marcio Barbosa (Brazil) and Chief Environmental Officer of DaimlerChrysler AG Dr. Herbert Kohler (Germany).

Mondialogo encourages dialogue between people who work together across continents on a joint project. This cooperation is intended to develop understanding, tolerance and friendship between people with different cultural, religious and linguistic backgrounds.

In addition to the “Mondialogo Engineering Award”, the partnership initiated by UNESCO and DaimlerChrysler also includes the “Mondialogo School Contest”, a worldwide contest aimed at promoting intercultural dialogue between school students, and an Internet Portal in four languages with a magazine featuring intercultural topics.

Internet Site

Source	Press Release N°2005-30
Author(s)	UNESCOPRESS