Finalists Nominated for 2007 Engineering Award

-- International jury nominates 30 finalist teams




STUTTGART, Germany, July 19  /PRNewswire/ -- The finalists for the Mondialogo Engineering Award 2007 have been decided. Yesterday, at the Mercedes-Benz-Museum in Stuttgart-Unterturkheim, Germany an international jury nominated 30 teams to proceed to the final of the worldwide engineering contest by DaimlerChrysler and UNESCO. At the beginning of December 2007, the nominated teams will be attending the Mondialogo Symposium in Mumbai/India, where the best of them will be honoured with the Engineering Award. The ten winning teams can look forward to cash prizes each worth euro 20,000. Another twenty teams will receive an honorary mention, each carrying euro 5,000 in prize money.

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A total of 3,200 students of engineering sciences from 89 countries had registered for the second edition of the Engineering Award.

Key factors for the submitted projects to achieve a nomination for the final were their creativity and quality, their relevance for the United Nations' Millennium Goals and their feasibility. The intensity of intercultural dialogue and the exchange of knowledge between the engineering students also played a crucial role in the assessment.

Deciding which of the participating teams best fulfilled these criteria was the task of a seven-member international jury made up of respected representatives from science and engineering:

  -- Peggy Oti-Boateng (Ghana), Director of the Technology Consultancy
     Centre at the University of Kumasi, Ghana, and member of the UNESCO
     Working Group for Technology and Poverty Reduction
  -- Kamel Ayadi (Tunisia), President of the World Federation of Engineering
     Organizations
  -- Ali Uddin Ansari (India), Director of the Centre for Environment
     Studies and Socioresponsive Engineering
  -- Paul Jowitt (Scotland), Director of the Scottish Institute of
     Sustainable Technology
  -- Shirley M. Malcom (USA), Head of Education and Human Resources of the
     American Association for the Advancement of Science
  -- Walter Erdelen (Germany), Assistant Director-General for Natural
     Sciences at UNESCO
  -- Bharat Balasubramanian (Germany), Vice President Group Research &
     Advanced Engineering E/E, IT and Processes at DaimlerChrysler AG



The engineering contest is a constituent part of the initiative "Mondialogo -- Intercultural Dialogue and Exchange", launched by DaimlerChrysler and UNESCO in October 2003. Mondialogo also includes an international school contest and is one of the most important private-public partnerships for the cultural arm of the United Nations. Through the Mondialogo Engineering Award, DaimlerChrysler and UNESCO are aiming to promote intercultural dialogue and knowledge transfer between engineering students on all continents and to campaign for understanding, respect and tolerance between cultures. At the same time, the contest is also intended to produce sustainable solutions for problems in developing countries.

Every project team is made up of groups of students from two technical universities or colleges, with one group coming from a developing country and the other from an industrialized nation. The teams had six months in which to devise a technical solution that will have a direct practical benefit for the population of a developing country and help to improve the quality of life there.

Partner teams generally cooperate via the Mondialogo Internet Portal, where a virtual office is set up for every project team (http://www.mondialogo.org/). In principle, though, to promote exchange amongst the members and achieve progress in the project idea, communication could take place using any channel.

Although implementation of the proposed solutions is not part of the Mondialogo Engineering Award, previous Mondialogo projects show that most proposals do not remain purely theoretical. In all, 11 ideas developed during the first edition of the engineering contest have resulted in specific projects and have been implemented. Examples include new methods of drinking water preparation, the development of biofuels and the use of solar energy in rural areas.

  Nominated teams with US-participation:

  Team             University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA
                   Jagannath Institute for Technology and Management,
                   Orissa, India
  Project Title    Solar-charged, Battery-Operated LED Lanterns to Replace
                   Oil Lamps in the Developing World

  Team             John-Hopkins University (Engineers Without Borders),
                   Baltimore, USA  Zakhe Agricultural College
                   (Agriculturalists Without Borders), KwaZulu-Natal, South
                   Africa
  Project Title    Sustainable Irrigation for Community Agriculture in rural
                   South Africa

  Team             Birzeit University, Deir Qaddis, Palestinian Territories
                   University of Utah, Salt Lake City, USA
  Project Title    Wastewater Treatment and Reuse produced from Olive Oil
                   Mills

  Team             University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA
                   Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Bogota, Colombia
  Project Title    Design and Manufacture of Dynamic Response Foot
                   Prostheses for Landmine Victims in Impoverished Areas

  Team             Malaviya National Institute of Technology, Jaipur, India
                   Fachhochschule Bingen, Bingen, Germany
                   Stanford University, Stanford, USA
  Project Title    Improvement of Health Conditions in Rural India using
                   Renewable Energy Sources

  Team             Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Peru, Lima Peru
                   University of Rochester, New York, USA
  Project Title    Improving Diagnosis and Treatment of Tuberculosis and
                   Cutaneous
                   Leishmaniasis in Peru Using Medical Imaging Techniques

  Team             Michigan State University, East Lansing, USA
                   HuaZhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan,
                   China
                   University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy
  Project Title    Inexpensive multi-functional medical equipment design

  Team             National Advanced School of Polytechnics, Yaounde,
                   Cameroon Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
                   Cambridge, USA
  Project Title    Exploitation and Valorization of Certain Forest Products
                   in Cameroon

  Team             Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Peru, Lima,
                   Peru Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York,
                   USA
  Project Title    Casa Ecologica Andina

  Team             University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (Engineers
                   without borders), USAEbonyi State University, Abakaliki,
                   Nigeria
  Project Title    The Adu Achi Water Development

  Team             University of California, Los Angeles, USA
                   Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Peru, Lima, Peru
  Project Title    Global Basic Needs in an Integrated Sustainable Approach

  Team             Michigan Technological University, Houghton, USA
                   PNG University of Technology, Lae, Papua New Guinea
  Project Title    Sustainable Treatment of Wastewaters from Garages and
                   Workshops Using Coconut Husk and Shell Wastes as Filter
                   Materials

  Team             The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art,
                   New York, USA
                   Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology,
                   Kumasi, Ghana
  Project Title    Development of a sustainable fluoride filter for use in
                   the Bongo District of Ghana, Africa



More information on Mondialogo, the nominees for the Engineering Award and the members of the jury is available at http://www.mondialogo.org/. 

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DATASOURCE: DaimlerChrysler AG



CONTACT:  Sue Williams of UNESCO, [phone], Fax,

[phone], ; or Andre Paris of MONDIALOGO,

+49 (0)69/7434 88309, Fax, [phone], ; or Han

Tjan of DaimlerChrysler Corporate Communications, [phone], Fax,

[phone], ; or Ursula Mertzig-Stein,

[phone], Fax, [phone],

, or Susann Rohr, [phone],

Fax, +49(0)711/17-97939, , both of

DaimlerChrysler AG



Web site:  http://www.daimlerchrysler.com/

http://www.mondialogo.org/ 

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