Last Call for Entries for Vodafone Americas Foundation & mHealth Alliance Wireless Innovation Project 2012
December 31 Deadline Rapidly Approaching for Competition with $650,000 in Cash and Prizes for Wireless and mHealth Solutions
The Vodafone Americas Foundation and mHealth Alliance announced the last call for submissions for the annual Vodafone Americas Foundation Wireless Innovation Project™ and the mHealth Alliance Award, a competition designed to spark innovation and help solve pressing global issues. Proposals will be accepted through December 31.
“So far, we’ve received very unique and exciting solutions, and we’re encouraged by the caliber of the applicants who have submitted proposals,” said June Sugiyama, Director of the Vodafone Americas Foundation. “This is the next generation of wireless innovation that can make a critical impact for problems facing millions of people around the globe.”
The Vodafone Americas Foundation™ launches the Wireless Innovation Project™ annually with a partnership with the mHealth Alliance. There is over $650,000 worth of prizes for solutions in the fields of education, health, access to communication, economic development, and the environment. Winners will acquire vast recognition as the frontrunners of a national competition. The partnership with the Vodafone Americas Foundation will last for three years following the presentation of the award.
Projects should be global in scope and must be at a stage of research where an advanced prototype or field/market test can occur during the award period. Proposals are due December 31, 2011, and winners will be announced at the Global Philanthropy Forum in April 2012.
If you or someone you know is interested in applying, you can begin the application process at http://project.vodafone-us.com/application/questionnaire.php. Details about eligibility, the application, information on past winners and more can be found at project.vodafone-us.com. More information about the mHealth Alliance and its work can be found at mhealthalliance.org.
About the Vodafone Americas Foundation™Vodafone Americas Foundation™ is part of Vodafone’s global network of foundations. It is affiliated with Vodafone Group Plc, the world’s leading mobile telecommunications company, with ownership interests in more than 30 countries and Partner Markets in more than 40 countries. As of March 31, 2011, Vodafone had approximately 370 million proportionate customers worldwide. In the U.S., the foundation directs its philanthropic activities towards the San Francisco Bay and the Metro Denver Areas where most Vodafone employees live and work, and where it strives to make a positive and enduring impact on the community. The Foundation is driven by a passion for the world around us. It makes grants that help people in the community and around the world lead fuller lives.
About the mHealth AllianceThe mHealth Alliance champions the use of mobile technologies to improve health throughout the world. Working with diverse partners to integrate mHealth into multiple sectors, the Alliance serves as a convener for the mHealth community to overcome common challenges by sharing tools, knowledge, experience, and lessons learned. The mHealth Alliance advocates for more and better quality research and evaluation to advance the evidence base; seeks to build capacity among health and industry decision-makers, managers, and practitioners; promotes sustainable business models; and supports systems integration by advocating for standardization and interoperability of mHealth platforms. The mHealth Alliance also hosts HUB (Health Unbound), a global online community for resource sharing and collaborative solution generation. Hosted by the United Nations Foundation, and founded by the Rockefeller Foundation, Vodafone Foundation, and UN Foundation, the Alliance now also includes PEPFAR, HP, the GSM Association, and NORAD among its founding partners. For more information, visit www.mhealthalliance.org.
Annual competition for most promising wireless innovations runs
October 10 through December 31, 2011 with awards totaling
$650,000 in cash and prizes
Redwood City, CA (October 10, 2011) – The Vodafone Americas Foundationä and mHealth Alliance today announced a call for submissions for the annual Vodafone Americas Foundation Wireless Innovation Project™ and the mHealth Alliance Award, a competition that identifies and supports wireless-related technologies with high potential to solve critical global issues. Proposals will be accepted from October 10 through December 31, 2011, with winners announced in April 2012.
Vodafone Americas Foundation™ launched the Wireless Innovation Project™ in 2009 to make a global impact through innovative wireless solutions. Applicants compete for first, second and third-place prizes worth $300,000, $200,000 and $100,000. Additionally, the mHealth Alliance Award winner will receive a prize package worth $50,000, which includes strategic and networking support from the mHealth Alliance, an organization dedicated to enabling the delivery of quality healthcare to the furthest reaches of wireless networks.
“With over six billion cell phone users worldwide, Vodafone has long recognized that wireless technology has the potential to make significant impacts in the world – particularly in developing countries – and we are committed to utilizing mobile technology to bring about a healthier, more prosperous and environmentally sustainable world,” said Peter Barry, President and Chair of Vodafone Americas Foundation. “All of our past winners have gone on to make significant progress with their innovations and, with the help of our prize money, are that much closer to reaching the people who will benefit greatly from their solutions.”
A panel of judges from the fields of wireless engineering, international development, social entrepreneurship, and business will evaluate the applications for their potential to solve issues in the fields of education, health, access to communication, economic development, and the environment.
Projects should be global in scope and must be at a stage of research where an advanced prototype or field/market test can occur during the award period. Details about eligibility and the application can be found at project.vodafone-us.com.
“The Vodafone Americas Foundation partnership with the mHealth Alliance comes at a tipping point in the field of mHealth,” said Patty Mechael, Executive Director of the mHealth Alliance. “Increasing demand for innovative approaches to operationalizing mHealth for scale and sustainability in global efforts is leading to improved access to health services and health outcomes. Unique mHealth innovations from competitions like this help the mHealth Alliance stay on the cutting edge with outside-the-box thinking to provide the leadership, fora, and support mechanisms needed to move mHealth forward.”
Since winning the Vodafone Americas Foundation Wireless Innovation Project and mHealth Alliance Award, most of the winners have been able to improve by redesigning their prototypes in order to bring them closer to market. Many of the past winners are now running field tests in developing countries in Africa, Asia and Central America, and some have gone on to win other prestigious awards and funding opportunities.
“Winning the Vodafone Americas Foundation Wireless Innovation Award has allowed us to advance our project significantly, but most importantly given us the recognition to go on to win more awards,” said Gil Zussman, of Columbia University’s EnHANTs Project, 2009 Wireless Innovation Project™ winner. “Vodafone has supported us in countless ways during the past two years, propelling our progress and magnifying our social impact.”
Further details about the competition can be found at project.vodafone-us.com. More information about the mHealth Alliance and its work can be found at www.mhealthalliance.org.
The 2011 Vodafone Americas Foundation Wireless Innovation Project™ winners:
First Place: NETRA
From the MIT Media Lab, NETRA is a clip-on eyepiece for mobile phones that can instantly screen for eye conditions and transmit data to an optometrist, allowing for early treatment of common refractive eye disorders and cataracts that disable more than half a billion people worldwide.
Second Place and mHealth Alliance Award Winner: Smart Diaphragm
From UC San Francisco, Smart Diaphragm is a wireless monitoring and early warning system for high-risk pregnancies that can be easily administered by a patient at a low cost. Smart Diaphragm detects decreasing levels of collagen in the cervix – an indicator of impending pre-term labor – with results transmitted to a cloud database monitored by physicians.
Third Place: CoolComply
CoolComply, a collaboration between Massachusetts General Hospital, Innovations in International Health at MIT, and an international NGO, the Global Health Committee, is a solar-powered wireless detection system that monitors the doses and temperature of medication for patients undergoing treatment for Multiple Drug Resistant Tuberculosis (MDR-TB), relaying readings via wireless technology to local healthcare workers in order to track treatment and intervene when necessary.
About the Vodafone Americas Foundation™
Vodafone Americas Foundation™ is part of Vodafone’s global network of foundations. It is affiliated with Vodafone Group Plc, the world’s leading mobile telecommunications company, with ownership interests in more than 30 countries and Partner Markets in more than 40 countries. As of March 31, 2011, Vodafone had approximately 370 million proportionate customers worldwide. In the U.S., the foundation directs its philanthropic activities towards the San Francisco Bay and the Metro Denver Areas where most Vodafone employees live and work, and where it strives to make a positive and enduring impact on the community. The Foundation is driven by a passion for the world around us. It makes grants that help people in the community and around the world lead fuller lives.
About the mHealth Alliance
The mHealth Alliance mobilizes innovation to deliver quality health at the furthest reaches of wireless networks and mobile devices. Working with diverse partners, the Alliance advances mHealth through research, advocacy, and support for the development of interoperable solutions and sustainable deployment models. The Alliance sponsors innovation challenges and conferences, leads cross-sector mHealth initiatives, and hosts HUB (Health Unbound), a global online community for resource sharing and collaborative solution generation. Hosted by the United Nations Foundation, and founded by the UN Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, and Vodafone Foundation, the mHealth Alliance now also includes PEPFAR, HP, NORAD, and the GSM Association among its founding partners. For more information, visit www.mHealthAlliance.org.
Deadline Date of February 1, 2010 to Apply for up to $650,000 in Cash and Prizes for Wireless Projects Demonstrating Promise Of Solving Critical Global Issues and mHealth
The Vodafone Americas Foundationä announced the last call for nominations for the second annual Wireless Innovation Project, a competition to identify and reward the most promising advances in wireless related technologies that can be used to solve critical problems around the globe. Proposals will be accepted through February 1, 2010, with the final winners announced on April 19, 2010 at the annual Global Philanthropy Forum in Redwood City, California.
“We’re encouraged by the entries we’ve received to date, and hope to see more come in before the deadline,” said Terry Kramer, President Vodafone Americas Foundationä. “Last year’s winners produced impressive technologies that now have the potential to make a significant impact in developing countries.”
Vodafone Americas Foundation will award a total of $600,000 to the first ($300,000), second ($200,000) and third-prize ($100,000) winners of the Wireless Innovation Project. In addition, the mHealth Alliance Award will be given to the project demonstrating the most potential to solve critical health issues, particularly in developing countries. The winner of the mHealth Alliance Award will receive a cash prize and benefits totaling $50,000, including participation in Santa Clara University’s Center for Science, Technology, and Society’s Global Social Benefit Incubator Program (GSBI™). The winner will also receive strategic and networking assistance from the mHealth Alliance, an umbrella group founded by the Rockefeller Foundation, United Nations Foundation and Vodafone Foundation that supports cross-sector collaboration in delivering healthcare to the furthest reaches of wireless communications.
Although projects may be global in scope, applicants for the Wireless Innovation Project must be nonprofits, educational institutions or social entrepreneurs based in the United States. Up to $650,000 will be awarded to wireless projects demonstrating exceptional promise to solve a critical global issue in the following fields: education; health; access to communication; the environment; or economic development. Moreover, the innovation can also represent a significant advancement in wireless related technology to help solve issues such as connectivity, language barriers and energy use. Projects must be at a stage of development where an advanced prototype or field test can occur during the award period.
A panel of judges from the fields of wireless engineering, international development, social entrepreneurship and business will evaluate the applications for their potential to solve a critical global issue in the fields of education, health, access to communication, the environment or economic development.
Complete detailed information about eligibility and an application can be found at http://project.vodafone-us.com/.
If you would like to learn more about the Vodafone Wireless Innovation Project, please join us on Thursday, Dec. 10th at 10:30am PST via webcast:
- Please download a copy of Quicktime player for your computers, if you haven’t already got a copy installed.
- Open Quicktime Player, and insert the URL in the ‘FILE – OPEN URL’ selection from the QT Player menu.
- The URL for the workshop is:
- rtsp://clsqt1b.ucsf.edu/cfrworkshop.sdp
- To ask questions (if joining by Live Webcast), send your question by email in advance or during the workshop to: lmedeiros@support.ucsf.edu
- June Sugiyama, Director, Vodafone Americas Foundation and
- Dr. Stanley Chia, Technical Advisor to Vodafone Americas Foundation and Senior Director,
- June Sugiyama, Director, Vodafone Americas Foundation and
- Dr. Stanley Chia, Technical Advisor to Vodafone Americas Foundation and Senior Director,
More information:
A WORKSHOP to Explore the Vodafone Americas Foundation’s Wireless Innovations Project – Grant Program
Sponsored by UCSF Global Health Sciences, UCSF Corporate and Foundation Relations and Vodafone Americas Foundation
WORKSHOP AGENDA
UCSF Mission Bay Campus – Genentech Hall, Byers Auditorium
600 16th Street
December 10, 2009
10:00 am:
Coffee Reception
10:30 am:
Welcome – James Kahn, MD, Professor of Medicine, UCSF
10:35 am
: Introduction of Vodafone Americas Foundation Innovation Project
Presented by:
Vodafone Group, Research and Development
10:55 am:
Q/A with June Sugiyama and Dr. Stanley Chia
(Web participants, email questions to: lmedeiros@support.ucsf.edu)
11:10 am:
Panel Presentations and Q&A
Presented by:
• Technical Advisor to Vodafone Americas Foundation – Dr. Stanley Chia
• Awardee for Cellophone Project – Aydogan Ozcan, PhD, Assistant Professor, UCLA
• Awardee for Cellscope Project – Daniel Fletcher PhD, Associate Professor, UCB
11:40 am:
Question and Answers for panelists
(Web participants, email questions to: lmedeiros@support.ucsf.edu)
11:55 am:
Closing Comments – James Kahn, MD, Professor of Medicine, UCSF
12:00 pm:
Luncheon and Open Forum –Please join us for an informal luncheon and share your ideas for technology projects and get introduced to colleagues with common interests.
____________________
The Goal of the Workshop
is to share the Vodafone Americas Foundation’s Wireless Innovations Project (a grant program) with interested applicants (engineers, scientists, technology and healthcare experts) from diverse backgrounds who have innovative wireless technology ideas that can be applied to social purpose. For more information on the project, go to:http://project.vodafone-us.com/
____________________
The Goal of the Workshop
June Sugiyama
Director
Vodafone Americas Foundation
June Sugiyama is the Director of the Vodafone Americas Foundation. Located in Walnut Creek, California, the Foundation provides grants in the San Francisco Bay Area and Denver. The latest project of the Foundation is the Vodafone Wireless Innovation Project, a competition to seek the best wireless technology that addresses critical issues around the globe.
Vodafone Americas Foundation is affiliated with Vodafone Americas Inc., part of the international British wireless telecommunications company, Vodafone Group Plc. Headquartered in the UK, Vodafone is considered one of the largest telecommunications companies in the world, with over 60,000 employees and operations in 25 countries across five continents. It currently holds 45% interest in Verizon Wireless in the United States. It has always been a policy of the company to open a foundation where it has operations; currently there are 23 foundations forming the Vodafone family of foundations worldwide.
June serves on the board of Northern California Grantmakers (NCG); participates in the Arts Loan Fund, the Emergency Loan Fund and Corporate Contributions Roundtable of NCG; she also serves on the advisory board of the Foundation Center in San Francisco, the advisory committee of the Vodafone Group Foundation & United Nations Foundation Technology Partnership; and has served on the board of the National Japanese American Historical Society, the Business Arts Council in San Francisco and Nobiru-kai, a Japanese newcomers association. June received her teaching credential and liberal studies degree at San Francisco State University, masters and specialist credential at University of San Francisco, and has teaching experience with schools throughout the Bay Area, especially in the Japanese Bilingual Programs. She has held the position at the Vodafone Americas Foundation for the past ten years.
Stanley Chia, PhD
Senior Director
Vodafone Group, Research and Development
Dr. Stanley Chia is Senior Director, Vodafone Group R&D. He has been with the mobile communications industry for over 25 years and has held positions in operation, technology, and strategy. Prior to joining Vodafone and AirTouch Communications, he worked for British Telecom Laboratories and British Telecom International. He has extensive international working experience in the Americas, Asia, Europe and Africa. He is currently leading strategic research for the company on emerging markets and future technologies. He is Senior Member of Institute of Electronic and Electrical Engineers (US) and Fellow of Institution of Engineering and Technology (UK).
Daniel A. Fletcher
Associate Professor, Department of Bioengineering Faculty Scientist, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Deputy Division Director, Physical Biosciences Division, LBL
Dan Fletcher is an Associate Professor in the Bioengineering Department and Biophysics Program at the University of California, Berkeley, where his research focuses on the biophysics of cell motility and the cytoskeleton and development of biomedical devices for disease diagnosis. Recent work from his laboratory includes measurement of actin network growth behavior that drives crawling motility, development of vesicle encapsulation technology for cellular reconstitution, and demonstration of fluorescence microscopy on a mobile phone using a device called the CellScope.
Dr. Fletcher received a B.S.E. from Princeton University and a D.Phil. from Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar. He received a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University as an NSF Graduate Research Fellow and was a Postdoctoral Fellow in Biochemistry at the Stanford University School of Medicine as part of the Stanford Bio-X program. His research has received an NSF CAREER Award, a National Inventors Hall of Fame Collegiate Award, and
was designated “Best of What’s New” by Popular Science magazine. Last year he was named a White House Fellow and worked with the Office of Science and Technology Policy at the White House. Dr. Fletcher is also Deputy Director of the Physical Biosciences Division of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Faculty Affiliate of the QB3 and CITRIS Institutes at UC Berkeley, a member of the Bioengineering, Biophysics, and Nanoscale Science and Engineering Graduate Groups, and Deputy Director of the Cell Propulsion Lab, an NIH Nanomedicine Development Center based at UCSF.
Aydogan Ozcan,
Stanford University Electrical Engineering Department in 2005. After a short post-doctoral fellowship at Stanford University, he is appointed as a Research Faculty Member at Harvard Medical School, Wellman Center for Photomedicine in 2006. Dr. Ozcan joined UCLA
Dr. Ozcan holds 14 US patents, 1 UK patent and another 9 pending patent applications for his inventions in nanoscopy, wide-field imaging, nonlinear optics, fiber optics, and optical coherence tomography. All of his patents are currently
licensed by Northrop Grumman Corporation, which is the leading defense company in US. Dr. Ozcan is also the co-author of more than 70 peer reviewed research articles in major scientific journals and conferences. Dr. Ozcan is serving in the Scientific Advisory Board of the Lifeboat Foundation, and is a member of the program committee of SPIE Photonics West Conference. He also serves as a panelist and a reviewer for National Science Foundation
2008 Okawa Foundation Research Award, given by the Okawa Foundation, in Japan. Prof. Ozcan also received the 2009 ONR Young Investigator Award and the 2009 IEEE Photonics Society’s (LEOS) Young Investigator Award for his pioneering contributions to non-destructive nonlinear material characterization and near-field and on-chip imaging & diagnostics. He is also the receipient of a National Science Foundation Award on “Biophotonics, Advanced Imaging, and Sensing for Human Health” for his on-chip plasmonic microscopy work. Dr. Ozcan was also awarded the Presidential Fellowship from the Turkish Ministry of Education in 1996 (declined). Dr. Ozcan is a member of IEEE, LEOS, EMBS, OSA, SPIE and BMES.
University of California, Los Angeles
ozcan@ee.ucla.edu
NIH Director’s New Innovator Award, 2009 MIT’s TR35 Award, 2009 Wireless Innovation Project Award, Vodafone Americas Foundation, 2009 Office of Naval Research (ONR) Young Investigator Award, 2009 IEEE LEOS Young Investigator Award, 2009 Okawa Award, 2008
Speaker Biographies
James Kahn, MD
Professor of Medicine
University of California, San Francisco jkahn@php.ucsf.edu
Dr. James Kahn is a Professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco campus specializing in patient-oriented research in the areas of HIV pathogenesis, disease modeling and the development of electronic medical record and communications between patients and clinicians. Dr. Kahn was an undergraduate at the University of California, Berkeley and graduated from the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine with a degree in History. He received training as a medical intern and junior medical resident at Johns Hopkins Hospital, returning to UCSF to complete an internal medicine residency, a medical oncology fellowship and to participate in a medical epidemiology fellowship. Dr. Kahn joined the UCSF AIDS Program at San Francisco General Hospital in 1987.
He has received a career award from the American Cancer Society and two career awards from the NIH. Dr. Kahn received one of twelve NIH “Re-engineering Clinical Research” awards from the NIH. He has provided the clinical leadership for several NIH funded innovative programs including the Primary HIV Infection and Post Exposure Prevention (PEP) projects and has developed an electronic medical record system, HERO (Healthcare Evaluation Record Organizer) and the linked personal health record (myHERO) for the dual purpose of providing a platform for clinical care and research. The expansion of clinical data elements and the ongoing curation and harmonization of the data elements is a focus of Dr. Kahn’s scholarly activities.
Working collaboratively with others, Dr. Kahn developed a mentoring program now in its fifth year for the UCSF-Gladstone Institute of Virology and Immunology’s Center for AIDS Research (CFAR) and the Mentor Development Program for the recently funded UCSF Clinical and Translational Science Institute. He is a member of the Coro-UCSF Leadership Program. He is the chair of the Research Administration Board at UCSF. Dr. Kahn serves as co-chair for the Information, Communication and Education Technology Committee for the UC School of Global Health. He has served on NIH review committees and has been a consultant to the Institute of Medicine, the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Military Infectious Disease Research Program and served on a State of the Science panel at the NIH. Dr. Kahn was a member of the Rockefeller Foundation convened conference on mHealth and was the chair of the mHealth meeting at UCSF in 2009. He is recently the recipient of an American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds to expand mHealth and focus on text messages for HIV/AIDS patients receiving care at San Francisco General Hospital.
Luncheon and Open Forum –Please join us for an informal luncheon and share your ideas for technology projects and get introduced to colleagues with common interests. Closing Comments – James Kahn, MD, Professor of Medicine, UCSF
(Web participants, email questions to: lmedeiros@support.ucsf.edu)
• Technical Advisor to Vodafone Americas Foundation – Dr. Stanley Chia
• Awardee for Cellophone Project – Aydogan Ozcan, PhD, Assistant Professor, UCLA
• Awardee for Cellscope Project – Daniel Fletcher PhD, Associate Professor, UCB
(Web participants, email questions to: lmedeiros@support.ucsf.edu)
Vodafone Group, Research and Development
Welcome – James Kahn, MD, Professor of Medicine, UCSF Coffee Reception
New mHealth Alliance Award to Spur Innovation in Wireless Solutions to Global Health Challenges
Award provides dedicated mHealth funding as part of Vodafone Americas Foundation’s Wireless Innovation Project
To spur innovation in the development of wireless solutions to global health challenges, the Vodafone Americas Foundation and the mHealth Alliance announced today a partnership that will expand the Vodafone Americas Foundation’s Wireless Innovation Project to include the new mHealth Alliance Award. The award will be granted to the developer of an innovative wireless technology with the most potential to address critical health challenges, especially in developing regions.
“In places where roads remain unpaved, and where basic infrastructure such as clean water and electricity are scant, mobile phones already have become an empowering force for millions,” said David Aylward, Executive Director of the mHealth Alliance. “The mHealth Alliance Award challenges innovators and social entrepreneurs to use mobile technology to advance health delivery in even the most remote environments, such as through improved diagnosis, treatment or access to information.”
The winner of the mHealth Alliance Award will receive a cash prize and benefits totaling $50,000, including participation in Santa Clara University’s Center for Science, Technology, and Society’s Global Social Benefit Incubator Program (GSBI™), a highly competitive program that connects innovators with a Silicon Valley support network and provides instruction on how to achieve maximum sustainability and impact in social enterprises. In addition, the winner will receive strategic and networking assistance from the mHealth Alliance, an umbrella group founded by the Rockefeller Foundation, United Nations Foundation and Vodafone Foundation that supports cross-sector collaboration in delivering healthcare to the furthest reaches of wireless communications.
“We are thrilled to partner with the mHealth Alliance to further encourage new technology in the field,” said June Sugiyama, Executive Director of the Vodafone Americas Foundation. “This is an ideal partnership because we share a common goal of improving livelihoods through wireless and mobile technology.”
The Vodafone Wireless Innovation Project is now underway, with applications being accepted through February 1, 2010. Although projects may be global in scope, the applicants must be from nonprofits based in the United States. A panel of judges from the fields of wireless engineering, international development, social entrepreneurship and business will evaluate the applications for their potential to solve a critical global issue in the fields of education, health, access to communication, the environment or economic development. Vodafone Americas Foundation will award first ($300,000), second ($200,000) and third ($100,000) prizes, and the new mHealth Alliance Award. The winner of the mHealth Alliance Award is eligible for the first three prizes as well. mHealth Alliance Award and Wireless Innovation Project winners will be announced at the Global Philanthropy Forum in April 19, 2010.
The Vodafone Americas Foundationä is pleased to announce the launch of the second annual Vodafone Wireless Innovation Project, a competition to identify and reward the most promising advances in wireless related technologies, which can be used to solve critical problems around the globe. Proposals will be accepted from October 5, 2009 through February 1, 2010, with the final winners announced on April 19, 2010 at the annual Global Philanthropy Forum in Redwood City, CA, one of the Wireless Innovation Project’s nonprofit partners.
“We’re committed to creating and fostering technology that will make a difference for the world,” said Terry Kramer, President Vodafone Americas Foundationä. “Last year’s competition introduced the world to some impressive new wireless technologies, which are now strongly positioned to make a real difference in people’s lives in areas such as disaster relief and mobile health.”
Vodafone Americas Foundation will award a total of $600,000 to the first, second and third-prize winners of the Wireless Innovation Project.
Vodafone, through its foundations, has long recognized that wireless technology has the potential to make the most significant impacts in the world particularly in developing countries, which lack basic infrastructure, access to communication, and other key resources. Guided by its “Passion for the World Around Us,” Vodafone Americas Foundation created the Wireless Innovation Project to foster creativity and fund the most promising innovations, which have the potential to solve pressing issues around the globe. Continuing this important work is in alignment with Vodafone and its global network of 23 foundations which, through grants and contributions of close to $60,000,000, are helping hundreds of thousands of people around the world lead better, fuller lives.
Applicants for the Wireless Innovation Project must be nonprofits, educational institutions or social entrepreneurs based in the United States. Up to $600,000 will be awarded to wireless projects demonstrating exceptional promise to solve a critical global issue in the following fields: education; health; access to communication; the environment; or economic development. Moreover, the innovation can also represent a significant advancement in wireless related technology to help solve issues such as connectivity, language barriers and energy use. Projects must be at a stage of development where an advanced prototype or field test can occur during the award period. Complete detailed information about eligibility and an application can be found at http://project.vodafone-us.com/
“It was a thrill to have our work recognized last year,” said John Kymissis, Professor of Electrical Engineering at Columbia University and co-developer of Energy Harvesting Active Network Tags (EnHANTs), the 2009 first place winner. “Since then, we and other colleagues at Columbia University obtained an additional $16 million in grant money from the Department of Energy that will enable us to further develop the energy harvesting components of our system.”
2009 Winners
Energy Harvesting Active Network Tags (EnHANTs) (First Place Winner, $300,000) –Wireless tags that harness solar and kinetic energy, and will be carried by people and embedded in buildings. In the event of a disaster – a building collapse or a fire — the tags will communicate with each other and create a wireless network that will provide rescue forces information regarding who is in a building and where they are located. (Developed by Columbia University)
CellScope (Second Place Winners, $200,000) – A compact, high-resolution cell phone microscope using cell phone cameras to do onsite microscopic medical diagnosis in the developing world. The CellScope is particularly useful for infectious disease diagnosis, especially TB and malaria. (Developed by University of California, Berkeley)
CelloPhone (Second Place Winners, $200,000) – A wireless and lens-free blood and fluid analyzer that can capture digital cellular images in the field, and transmit them to a central medical lab for diagnostic purposes. The CelloPhone is capable of monitoring HIV, malaria and TB in developing countries. (Developed by University of California, Los Angeles)
About the Vodafone Americas Foundation
Vodafone Americas Foundation is part of Vodafone’s global network of foundations. We are affiliated with Vodafone Group Plc, the world’s leading mobile telecommunications company, with equity interests in 27 countries and Partner Markets in more than 40 countries. As of December 31, 2008, Vodafone had approximately 289 million proportionate customers worldwide. In the U.S., our foundation directs its philanthropic activities towards the San Francisco Bay and the Metro Denver Areas where most of our employees live and work, and where we strive to make a positive and enduring impact on our communities. The Foundation is driven by a passion for the world around us. We make grants that help people in our communities and around the world lead fuller lives.
Written by: June Sugiyama, Director, Vodafone Americas Foundation
Innovative technology has the potential to save lives, and wireless technologies hold a special promise for vexing global problems. In some resource-limited areas, access to reliable wireless service is among the only infrastructure platforms available.
That’s why the Vodafone Americas Foundation was delighted to give away more than $700,000 through our first Wireless Innovation Project, a competition that identifies and funds unique innovations using wireless related technology offering the best potential to address critical social issues around the world.
Too often promising social innovations languish because they don’t have a platform for effective and efficient delivery. We designed the competition to encourage cross-disciplinary cooperation within universities and encouraged non-governmental organizations and non-profits to apply. We also wanted to add the private sector rigor to the process of competing – a daunting online application forced teams to challenge academic and theoretical assumptions with real-world data.
Although fifty-one universities and 45 NGOs representing 25 states completed the online application, only nine finalists were selected to present before a world-class panel of judges. The panel represented the best minds in wireless technologies, global development and philanthropy.
The contestants heard feedback from venture capitalists who judge new technologies every day, to global mobile development experts who evaluate how technology can actually be deployed in the field, to engineers who evaluated whether the innovation was truly an innovation. For some contestants, it was the first time they had the chance to present their innovation outside their immediate field of research.
On April 23 the top three finalists shared the cash prize of $700,000 and were showcased at the Global Philanthropy Forum (www.philanthropyforum.org). The 2009 Wireless Innovation Project winners are:
· Energy Harvesting Active Networked Tags (EnHANTs) for Disaster Recovery Applications – A system that uses wireless devices to track and locate survivors trapped by fires and structural collapse.
· CelloPhone – A lensfree imaging platform on a cellphone for disease detection and diagnostics using digital holograms of the cells or bacteria, that is capable of monitoring HIV, malaria, tuberculosis and various other diseases.
· CellScope: Mobile Microscopy for Disease Diagnosis – A conventional cell phone is transformed into a compact, high-resolution, handheld microscope with the capability of on-site disease diagnosis and wireless transmission of patient data to clinical centers for remote diagnosis & treatment.
We at the Vodafone Americas Foundation were humbled by the ingenuity and sheer talent of all the applicants who participated. Come see project summaries, photos and video of the Wireless Innovation Project winners at http://project.vodafone-us.com
We hope that each and every one of the Wireless Innovation Project finalists will succeed. Success for us will mean hundreds of thousands of lives saved when these incredible innovations are fully unleashed.
The United Nations Foundation and Vodafone Foundation Partnership, and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), the world’s largest association of technical professionals are announcing the launch of a new initiative called The Humanitarian Technology Challenge (HTC). HTC is a project that is designed to identify and help develop technology-based solutions to current challenges facing humanitarian workers and others working in resource-constrained environments. They are matching humanitarian professionals and technologists who are interested in contributing their time and expertise to help develop technological solutions to challenges that aid workers and development experts face working in the field.
Stay tuned for a list of keynote speakers and panelists selected from among the humanitarian and technology communities, and a complete agenda covering the two-day event. We expect this event to create challenge working groups and set in motion a process for facilitating web-based collaboration on solution development that will continue after the conference closes.
We invite you to register
your interest in attending the Humanitarian Technology Challenge Conference, June 1-2, 2009 in Washington, DC, where top three top ‘humanitarian challenges’ identified by aid organizations will be presented and the solutions process will begin. The challenges are:
-Reliable Electricity – Availability of power for electronic devices in resource-constrained environments.
- Data Connectivity of Rural District Health Offices – Capability of exchanging data among remote field offices and central health facilities.
- Patient ID Tied to Health Records – Availability of consistent patient records, including when patients visit different clinics and when they relocate.
Today, the three winners of the Vodafone Wireless Innovation Project have been announced. The three winning innovations will share in prizes totaling up to $700,000 USD to support their next phase of advancement and implementation.
The winners are:
· Energy Harvesting Active Networked Tags (EnHANTs) for Disaster Recovery Applications – A system that uses wireless devices to track and locate survivors trapped by fires and structural collapse. The system is based on energy harvesting tags using ultra low power communications. Developed by Professors Gil Zussman, Peter Kinget, Ioannis (John) Kymissis, Dan Rubenstein, and Xiaodong Wang of
Columbia University.
· CelloPhone – A lensfree imaging platform on a cellphone for disease detection and diagnostics using digital holograms of the cells or bacteria, that is capable of monitoring HIV, malaria, tuberculosis and various other diseases. Developed by Dr. Aydogan Ozcan, Dr. Neven Karlovac and Dr. Yvonne Bryson of the University of California at Los Angeles.
· CellScope: Mobile Microscopy for Disease Diagnosis – Transforms a conventional cell phone into a compact, high-resolution, handheld microscope with the capability of on-site disease diagnosis and wireless transmission of patient data to clinical centers for remote diagnosis & treatment. Developed by Dr. Daniel Fletcher, Dr. Erik Douglas and Dr. Wilbur Lam of the University of California at Berkeley.
More information – including project summaries, photos and video of the Wireless Innovation Project winners is online at http://project.vodafone-us.com.
This year, we had nearly 100 applicants from U.S. universities and nonprofit organizations. The Project seeks innovations in wireless related technology to address a critical global issue in the areas of education, health, economic development, the environment or access to communication.
Nine finalists were chosen to give in-person presentations to an expert panel of judges that included Andrew Dunnett, Director of Vodafone Group Foundation; Melanie Edwards, Founder and CEO of Mobile Metrix; William (Bill) L. Keever, Vodafone Americas Foundation director and retired President Vodafone Asia Pacific; Jane Wales, President and CEO of the World Affairs Council of Northern California and the Global Philanthropy Forum; and Professor Michael Walker, Director of Vodafone Group Research and Development.
“This year’s Wireless Innovation Project winners hold tremendous promise for leveraging innovation to make a dramatic social difference at a global scale,” said Peters Suh, Chairman Vodafone Americas Foundation and President Vodafone Ventures Ltd. “The mobile microscope projects will make a substantial contribution to the rapidly-growing mobile health arena and the disaster recovery applications project has incredible potential to save lives in the case of natural disasters and in a myriad of other scenarios. We are extremely inspired by these innovations and excited to provide funding to help bring them closer to implementation.”
The Wireless Innovation Project winners will also be showcased on April 23rd at the Global Philanthropy Forum in Washington, D.C. – a premiere gathering of 500 of the world’s top social investors, philanthropists, experts and activists working on matters of global concern.
Dear Friends,
The Vodafone Americas Foundation is pleased to announce the launch of our Wireless Innovation Project, a new competition that seeks to identify and fund the best innovations using wireless related technology to address critical social issues around the world.
We hope you will help spread the word to potential applicants by forwarding the attached fact sheet and press release, and directing them to the Foundation website at: http://www.vodafone-us.com/innovation.html and pressing the “enter” button below it, or directly reach the Project website at: http://project.vodafone-us.com
Three winners will be awarded prizes of $300,000, $200,000 and $100,000 for unique, late-stage wireless innovations that offer the best potential for creating social change in the areas of education, health, economic development, the environment and access to communication.
The Vodafone Wireless Innovation
Project is open to projects submitted by applicants from universities and nonprofit organizations based in the United States. Eligible projects must:
· Demonstrate a multi-disciplinary approach that uses an innovation in wireless related technology to address a critical global issue
· Hold the potential for replication and large scale impact
· Include a business plan or basic framework for financial sustainability and rollout
Applications will be accepted online from November 17 to February 2 at http://project.vodafone-us.com/
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us at project@vodafone.com@vodafone.com
Thank you very much for spreading the word about the Wireless Innovation Project, and helping to discover innovations that can change the world.
