WINNER (Under 17s)
Anushka Ashok: Transforming 1 million toilet visits in remote villages
Anushka transformed one million toilet visits for 5000 students, in 40 remote schools. Anushka noticed menstruating girls missed school due to unusable toilets. She started Project Cleanlihood and trained 1000 students in 13 schools to maintain clean toilets. Anushka enlisted school management support, conducted student workshops, raised funds to repair toilets and for salaries of cleaners. She devised a WhatsApp community group uploading daily toilet cleaning pictures, and conducted surprise visits ensuring daily checks of sparkling toilets with clean running water. Her sustainable model adopted by the local government now serves 40 schools facilitating 5000 students, including 2000 teenage girls.
WINNER (Under 21s)
Sebastião Mendonça + Marta Bernardino: Trovador – the world’s first all-terrain tree-planting robot
We’re Sebastião and Marta, both 20 and Portuguese. Half of our country’s forests have burned in our lifetime, and we watched it happen. When we volunteered to plant trees, we were told the slopes that need them most are untouchable: too steep for tractors, too dangerous for people. So we built Trovador, the world’s first four-legged tree-planting robot. The first prototype cost €15. The latest climbs 45° slopes, and plants hundreds of seedlings an hour into burned ground. Backed by National Geographic, UNEP and WWF, and named to Forbes 30 Under 30, we’re pulling 500,000+ trees back into reach.