Awards Honor Innovators Who May Save the World
Silicon Valley takes break from money-making to honor tech that betters planet.
Nov. 9, 2007 — -- It's no secret that Silicon Valley likes to celebrate successful entrepreneurs. Actually, it's only a small exaggeration to say that's what we live for out here.
We worship the heroes, engineers, scientists and clever business people who build products and design services that lead to fame, fortune and in some cases, new verbs.
So another celebration of risk-takers hardly seems noteworthy enough to justify the drive to the party. However, once in a while Silicon Valley recognizes a different type of entrepreneur, and when that happens, even the most successful captains of the technology industry gladly don the tuxes and stand back in awe.
Once a year, the Tech Museum of Innovation, located in San Jose, Calif., plays host to the Tech Museum Awards: Technology Benefiting Humanity. These awards honor entrepreneurs working on the 15 most urgent global challenges facing humanity, as identified by the United Nations in 2000.
Specifically, the Tech Awards are bestowed on those working in these five areas: environmental preservation, economic development, education, health and equality. From a large field of nominations -- this year more than 700 from counties large and small, around the world -- 25 are chosen to be honored as Tech Laureates, and of those, five receive further recognition and a check.
While to the largest of the participants, the $50,000 prize is more honorary than world changing, to others that prize represents years of operating budget and the difference between continued work and closing shop.
The largest underwriters of the program are Applied Materials, Intel, Accenture, Microsoft, the Swanson Foundation (Robert Swanson was a co-founder of Genetech) and SanDisk Corporation, as well as the Tech Museum and Santa Clara University's Center for Science, Technology and Society. Without wanting to sound sappy, the impact of the contributions of these organizations to this event absolutely can not be overstated.
This year's laureates ranged from companies as large as Proctor & Gamble, honored for an innovative, inexpensive rural water-purification effort, to a three-man effort in Nepal to replace dangerous kerosene in-home lamps with solar-powered alternatives.
