A society in which everyone can live and move freely, safely and pollution-free.
2019 Category Winners
Our Category Winners are announced mid May every year.
2019 -
Energy & Power -
CATEGORY-WINNER
NEXWAFE (Kerfless wafering by high throughput epitaxy)
Based in Germany, Nexwafe aims to increase competitive advantages for solar energy by replacing traditional manufacturing methods with high end process, including growing new layers on a re-usable Si seed wafer. NexWafe can both cut production costs and recycle used materials, not least by making certain parts of the process (polysilicon production, ingot pulling, wire sawing) obsolete. By doing so cost of wafer production are cut in half, silicon losses are reduced by more than 90%, and the use of energy is also reduced by 50%. Replacing todays wafer production by our technology would save 50.000.000 tons of CO2 emission per year.
2019 -
Economy -
CATEGORY-WINNER
Excess Materials Exchange
Excess Materials Exchange speeds up the transition to a circular economy and turns waste into wealth. The EME provides a reliable source for the buying and selling of secondary materials. By using EME the estimated R&D time for sourcing secondary resources can be reduced by 85%. By offering materials, components and products that are redundant in one company to others via a marketplace, they become an income stream rather than incurring costs for disposal. The EME can reduce waste processing cost by as much as 150% by actively facilitating the making of high value reuse matches of materials, components and products.
2019 -
Behavioral Change -
CATEGORY-WINNER
Expandals
Children's feet grow faster than their height which means that they need to ‘upgrade’ shoes even more frequently than clothes. Particularly in developing countries this can be a challenge. GroFive have developed a special pair of sandals, called Expands, which can ‘grow’ with the child: the straps on the front, back as well as the sides of the shoe can be adjusted, meaning that, for example, one shoe fits from US 5C to US 9. The Kickstarted campaign GroFive launched in 2018 was 800% funded, in 30 days.
2019 -
Environment -
CATEGORY-WINNER
CO2 Evolution®
Innovator Energy provides a solution to the global energy crisis, mainly in how carbon dioxide is captured in the process of emissions from power plants. Innovator Energy has developed a patented CO2 capture process that separates CO2 from flue gas. It can save 96% of energy compared to the most efficient comparable technology currently available - amine technology -and costs less than $8 per ton to capture CO2.
2019 -
Food -
GRAND-PRIZE-WINNER
Perfect Day flora-based dairy protein
The trend towards animal-free foods continues to grow, with some consumers suffering from lactose intolerance and others concerned about drinking milk from animals which may have been treated with hormones or antibiotics. People are also increasingly aware of the high environmental impact dairy cattle have across the world. Perfect Day delivers on the same nutritious dairy protein that cows make, while allowing consumers to enjoy their favorite foods without compromising on taste, nutrition, or their values.
2019 -
Smart Cities -
CATEGORY-WINNER
SweetSense
SweetSense technology is a robust, fully-integrated, compact, low-powered, high resolution data acquisition system. It is tarted specifically to the $40 billion annual global development market. SweetSense is used on applications including water pumps, water filters, cookstoves, and latrines, with cellular or satellite based reporting to a central server where user and performance data is analyzed and graphed online in near-real time.
Hundreds of SweetSense units have been deployed in 12 countries,
2019 -
Gender Equality -
CATEGORY-WINNER
Maternova
Maternova are facilitating access to life-saving innovation in newborn, obstetrics and reproductive health, by educating, marketing, distributing and evaluating such products to private hospitals, governments, Ministries of Health, NGOs and healthcare professionals around the world. A share of their profits goes into midwifery training schools in the lowest resource countries of the world. Their non-profit sister entity, Maternova Research, oversees research and training initiatives.
2019 -
Human Development -
CATEGORY-WINNER
AUM
Many poor people loose their voice after throat cancer surgery because they cannot afford a replacement prosthetic voice box at a cost of US$1000. For example, in India the poor often earn less than $2 a day. AUM, a $1 ultra low-cost voice prosthesis device invented in 2015, comes with a curved knife that helps the puncturing of windpipe and food pipe with relative ease using a fisheye technique; Shishruth is an extremely inexpensive handheld wooden devise that helps to insert the prosthesis into the throat in less than two minutes. A training module supports clinicians and physicians with the procedure, and maintaining the prosthesis.
2019 -
Transportation -
CATEGORY-WINNER
dreyev
Dreyev is an advanced solution to prevent crashes caused by inattentive driving. Unlike existing solutions, dreyev creates driving behavior models, anticipates upcoming risks and generates personalized, real-time, urgency-triggered alerts. As a unique technology, it evaluates driver's reaction time and quality of corrective actions in response to warnings and alerts generated by the virtual copilot, in order to generate an accurate profile of a driver's attitude to risk and ability to cope with it. It includes an in-vehicle dual camera, powered by computer vision and machine learning in a smartphone-based application.
2019 -
Materials, Resources & Water -
CATEGORY-WINNER
PulpWorks
At PulpWorks offers an all-pulp-and-paper alternative to plastic packaging. The moulded pulp provides packaging protection drawing on insights from the disciplines of geometry and architecture. Configurations effectively nest and stack, reducing shipping costs and storage space. And no assembly is required: structures are designed for speed and simplicity - making them ready and easy-to-use in our customers’ facilities.
WELCOME TO KATERVA
Our global environment and economic security are inextricably intertwined. But increasing levels of greenhouse gases, environmental degradation, and natural resource depletion are precluding long-term social and economic security.
Global collaboration and coordinated, distributed action are vital to restore and replenish the world’s environmental and economic ecosystems. The old, siloed ways aren’t working. We need new ways to cooperate and innovate across the public and private sectors to meet the environmental and economic exigencies we face. Unity is needed. Coherence of initiatives is needed. Coalescence of invention, innovation, knowledge and investment is needed.
Katerva is designed to meet this imperative by uniting the people and the technology paramount to catalyzing and supporting sustainable innovation that is exponentially scalable.
The challenges mankind faces are colossal. But so are the courage, ingenuity, wisdom and heart of innovators, entrepreneurs and others the world over. Never before have we had such extraordinary tools for collaborative innovation. Never before have we had the technology to cull the world’s brightest minds and create an actionable platform of support for the common good.
OUR LATEST FINDS
NOMINATE NOW
Do you know of an innovation that is original, readily available, financially viable, scientifically feasible, scalable, and has positive social/environmental impact? Then please submit it to our Awards Program as this is just what we are looking for.
Our Award Categories
CITIES & MOBILITY
EDUCATION & HUMAN RESOURCES
A society in which everyone is able and willing to contribute to society.
ENERGY & ENVIRONMENT
A society in which everyone can enjoy clean and sustainable resources and energy.
FOOD & WATER
A society in which everyone is provided with clean water and safe, nourishing food.
HEALTH & WELLBEING
A society in which everyone can enjoy a long and healthy life.
Our Team
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Bettina von Stamm
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Greg Horowitt
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Terry Waghorn
news and events
Are you aware of an exciting event that’s relevant in the context of sustainability and innovation and think our community should too? Let us know!
Our Partners
Moving towards sustainability is at the heart of all that Katerva does and stands for. We know that there are many other organisations who share our passion and sense of urgency. Together we are stronger and can increase our impact manifold compared to each of us pursuing our goals on our own. That's why we delight in collaborating and entering partnerships, mutually supporting each other in our contributions on the journey towards sustainability.
Is your organisation part of this journey? We would love to hear from you to see whether we might be able to support each other.
Contact Form
Our international headquaters are based in San Diego, hosted by procopio.
Accelerating the Future...