HRH The Prince of Wales Presents the First HRH The Prince of Wales Young Sustainability Entrepreneur Prize - Jan 31, 2014

ONDON and ROTTERDAM, Jan. 31 /CSRwire/ - HRH The Prince of Wales announced the recipient of the Young Sustainability Entrepreneur Prize at a ceremony at Buckingham Palace alongside Unilever CEO Paul Polman and Professor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz, Vice Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, in the presence of leaders and entrepreneurs in the sustainability arena.

Gamal Albinsaid from Indonesia received the award from HRH The Prince of Wales, with a prize of €50.000 in financial support and a package of individually tailored mentoring. The winner was selected from seven Unilever Sustainable Living Award finalists from across the world. Unilever and the Cambridge Programme for Sustainability Leadership (CPSL) launched the inaugural Unilever Sustainable Living Young Entrepreneurs Awards in September 2013.

The international awards programme is designed to inspire young people around the world to tackle environmental, social and health issues. The competition, ran on an Ashoka platform, invited entrepreneurs aged 30 years or under, to submit inspiring, practical, and tangible solutions to help make sustainable living commonplace. In its first year, the programme received over 500 entries from 90 countries.

HRH The Prince of Wales commented; "I would like to give my warmest congratulations to Gamal Albinsaid for his marvellous initiative. This young leader has developed an initiative with the potential to disrupt the way in which community services are provided for the benefit of the area’s poorest people. Genuinely innovative, it tackles two problems at one time: the management and re-use of waste, and the provision of health insurance and health services to poor communities. All finalists are applying their imagination to move away from the "take, make and dispose" economic model and towards this much more circular, sustainable approach. And they deserve our support."

Unilever CEO Paul Polman said: “There is no group more important to involve than young people. They are half the world’s population and will be the guardians of sustainable development long into the future. The time is now for young entrepreneurs to stand up and develop a business that can genuinely make a big difference. We all need to use our energy and resourcefulness to support young entrepreneurs to reach scale, accelerate the development, inspire others and help create a brighter future for all.”

“We all know HRH The Prince of Wales is passionate about sustainable development and an enthusiastic champion of youth enterprise and young entrepreneurship. I would like to thank HRH The Prince of Wales for his leadership in supporting these Awards and for agreeing to the top prize being named in his honour.”

Polly Courtice, CPSL Director, and co chair of the awards judging panel said: “The exceptional calibre and dynamism of the finalists encouraged and inspired our judges. We are delighted to bring the research insight and entrepreneurial dynamism of the Cambridge community to support these young leaders in refining their initiatives and taking them to scale.”

Unilever Sustainable Living Young Entrepreneurs Awards 2014
The new programme will be launched early in the Summer of 2014 and young entrepreneurs willing to participate can register on the Ashoka Changemakers platform via www.changemakers.com/SustLiving.

Note to the editors:
Photos of HRH The Prince of Wales and the winner are available via the Press Association Picture Library.

More information on the winner: Garbage Clinical Insurance, Gamal Albinsaid, 24 (Indonesia) Waste recycling as a currency for primary health care

The runners up, who each received €10.000 in financial support and a mentoring package are:

NextDrop, Anu Sridharan, 26 (India)
Water use optimization and leakage tracking via a real time data and messaging system

Unfire, Blessing Mene, 26 (Nigeria)
Low-cost chicken-feed (using waste mango seed ) for smallholder farmers

Maya Universe Academy, Surya Karki, 23 (Nepal)
Sustainable collective farming for rural Nepalese communities, with farm profits use to fund free schools

X Runner, Isabel Medem, 28 (Peru)
Water-less toilets in slums; converted into saleable compost

Pigeonpea, Curt Bowen, 26 (Guatemala)
Smallholder farmer crop solution for natural, sustainable soil enrichment and greater income

Ilumexico, Manuel Wichers, 26 (Mexico)
Carbon-free renewable energy from solar lamp network plus micro-loans