Million dollar prize winners

The ones that save the planet

Nov 13, 2024

Entrepreneurs who build giant factories that make fabulous video games find it easy to raise money but the ones that do their bit to regenerate Earth find it a little harder (try going around selling a video game vs. a solar panel - duh!). This got some groups of people a little agitated. As agitated people do, these groups of people got together, eat several delicious meals and pondered about the state of affairs of entrepreneurs trying to do their bit for the world. One group (after an especially extra delicious meal) decided to fund entrepreneurs who build socially conscious businesses. They also instituted a prize called ‘The Earthshot Prize’. According to their website, ‘we search the globe for game-changing innovations that will help us repair our planet, awarding the very best solutions each year with £1 million to scale their work’.

Every week, I pick up one news story that catches my eye and write about it. When the winners of Earthshot Prize 2024 were announced a little while earlier, I thought my curious readers who must have been bored to death with news of Trump’s victory in every piece of word written, would like a change.

Here is a glimpse into the innovative work done by three award winners of this year. Dig in and I hope you like this week’s story!

1. Altyn Dala Conservation Initiative

Once upon a time in Kazakhstan, there used to be huge rolling grasslands (simply radiant to look at), with large herds of Saiga antelopes (think deer) running across them. And then, once upon a time came to an end. With that ‘industrial farming’ began. The grasslands began to vanish. The antelopes lost their habitats. Climate change joined the party and affected the vegetation growth further. Throw in some poachers into this midst. You can see how the antelopes became an endangered species.

The Altyn Data Conservation Initiative decided to do something about the declining saiga antelopes. With the cooperation from the Kazakhstan government, they tagged 250 Saiga Antelopes with telemetry devices to track their nomadic movements. Once they knew where the antelopes were moving, they identified the preferred breeding and feeding habitats of these antelopes. They decided that these parts of the grasslands were the ones they would save to begin with (after all, there is only so much money and there are only so many hands to help). These areas were called protected areas.

If you visited these protected areas today (as I am happy to say that you can and dearly persuade you to), you can find an extraordinarily large number of saiga antelopes. From a population of just 20,000 in 2003, the grasslands are now home to 2.86 million Saiga. The Saiga Antelope used to be on the RED LIST of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). But with the regeneration of the antelopes, they have been moved out of the Red List OR “critically endangered”. Now they are called “near threatened”. An improvement (yes, really!)

Trivia: The Golden Steppes of Kazakhstan is still one the LEAST protected ecosystems in the world. We read a lot about the Amazon rainforest, the glaciers of the Arctic etc. But these steppes of Central Asia (a.k.a the Golden Steppes) are hardly talked about.

selective focus photography of antelope standing on field during daytime — Photo by David Clode on Unsplash

2. GAYO, Green Africa Youth Organization

The African continent is a region where people are migrating in large numbers from rural areas to the urban areas. That’s usually a good story for the people who are moving (more jobs, higher incomes, access to better schools etc.). But it’s not such a great story for the waste disposal agencies of the urban centres. Imagine giant mounds of landfills that leave a lovely stink around. Some countries simply incinerate all that waste (e.g. Singapore). As Prof.McGonagall in Harry Potter is bound to say ‘Now, my dear, that is not very nice, is it?’ Gee, who loves harmful smoke and carbon emissions?

Segregating waste (organic waste vs. recycle plastic vs. reusable materials vs inorganic) helps greatly in reducing the waste accumulation as the segregated waste can be recycled. But, but, but, people rarely do that. GAYO realised nobody was going to segregate waste if you simply asked them to, or if you tried appealing to their better nature. GAYO decided to make it worth their while. So they trained people (young and old) from each community to create something useful with the waste.

Some liked the idea of building large composting pots to create manure from organic waste. The compost makers would then sell the manure to urban balcony farmers or organic agricultural farmers with large tracts of land.
GAYO trained some others to make charcoal briquettes with leftover bits of wood and sawdust. These were then sold for cooking or grilling.
GAYO helped really creative people who made cool products with discarded plastic containers - find shelf space in large retail outlets where they could be sold.

These recyclers were now willing to pay people to pick up waste, provided it was segregated clearly. Voila! a problem solved. Households were happy to sell the organic waste to their compost makers, the plastic bottles to their creative recycled-products makers and so on.

Down below is a cool piece of art someone made with discarded waste (unrelated to GAYO - may I add). I liked the picture and thought I’d share it here.

a wall that has some kind of artwork on it — Photo by Regös Környei on Unsplash

3. Advanced Thermovoltaic Systems

Factories that produce cement and steel use a lot of energy to produce cement and steel. Worse still, ~60% of this energy is simply lost as waste heat. It’s quite a lot might I add - the wasted heat is the equivalent of the energy used by 4 billion homes, twice the number of homes that are on the planet. Someone thought they should do something to reduce this wasted heat. That someone was a company in the US called ‘Advanced Thermovoltaic Systems’.

They developed a piece of technology that could capture waste heat and turn it into electricity!

Each piece of this technology uses small, smartphone-sized plates to convert waste heat into electricity. These plates are tiny, making them easy to transport, and install anywhere in the world.
The components used in their plates are ~98% reusable (!!!).

Advanced Thermovoltaic Systems has tested it successfully in one cement company’s factory and claims it works beautifully. But, this technology is still quite expensive - there may not be too many cement makers who would want to SPEND a lot on buying these plates. As of now, it is still cheaper to buy electricity off the grid and send ugly plumes into the air than to buy these tiny plates. Hopefully winning this million pound prize money will pay for some of this company’s research and development, that would eventually bring the price of these plates down.

smoke comes out from industrial factory chimney — Photo by Weichao Deng on Unsplash

Coming soon - the Lighter Side in printed form

If you’ve been enjoying Lighter Side so far, I have exciting news—our end-of-year printed book, Lighter Side: Most Exciting Stories of 2024, is almost here!

For those of you who love the feel of a book in your hands, this is going to be a blast. I’m curating the most captivating tales that curious kids will adore! This 2024 edition covers global events in geopolitics, as well as the latest in science, tech, and sports. I break down complex topics in a simple, witty style that’s fun to read. Plus, there will be illustrations contributed by both kids and adults, and most stories will include a game or two! Get ready to grab your copy very soon!

The Lighter Side

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