Hong Kong, October 9, 2024 – The Schneider Electric Foundation has announced the five winners of its global "Youth Innovation for a Sustainable Future" Call for Projects, launched in celebration of the Foundation's 25th anniversary. The winning initiatives, selected from over hundreds of applications across 2 continents, are spearheading innovative solutions for a more sustainable world through a just transition, skills training, and entrepreneurship.
“Youth Innovation For A Sustainable Future”: A Global Call for Contributions
The call for contributions, titled ‘Youth Innovation For A Sustainable Future’ organized with Ashoka’s program Changemaker Companies, aims to identify the 25 most impactful and innovative youth-serving projects, from each regions participating in the project (Africa & Middle East, Europe, America, Asia). This global call for contributions focuses on professional training, entrepreneurship, and a fair transition, with a 50,000-euro prize. The selected projects will also gain enhanced visibility through Schneider Electric’s Foundation and Ashoka’s global channels and networks.
Gilles Vermot-Desroches, Senior Vice President of Schneider Electric Corporate Citizenship and Institutional Affairs and General delegate of the Schneider Electric Foundation declared: “The younger generation is playing an influential role in how we shape tomorrow's innovative solutions. From the outset, our Foundation has valued the contribution of youth, and therefore, considers the importance of supporting young people to nurture both future generations and our planet.”
“Youth Innovation For A Sustainable Future”: Winners in Asia
The 2024 "Youth Innovation for a Sustainable Future" Asian’s winners are:
- The Women’s Foundation (Hong Kong) - Improving the lives of women and girls, by challenging gender stereotypes, increasing the number of women in leadership roles, and empowering women in poverty through research, programmes, education and advocacy.
- Yayasan Solar Chapter (Indonesia) - Empowering remote communities through education and development initiatives, building resilience to climate challenges, one step at a time.
- Sambhav Foundation (India) - Addressing critical social issues such as unemployment, lack of quality education, inadequate healthcare, and the need for sustainable community development through targeted programs and impactful interventions.
- SDSN Youth (Philippines) - Mobilizing youth to shape a sustainable world for future generations, it is one of the world’s biggest networks of young leaders working together to accelerate solutions towards the Sustainable Development Goals.
- Connecting Dreams (India) - Empowering youth to drive entrepreneurial actions that enhance livelihoods in sustainable ways, economically, socially, and environmentally.
‘25 Years Young’: A Celebration of Youth and 25 Years of Action
Founded in 1999 under the aegis of the Foundation de France, the Schneider Electric Foundation supports changemakers driving just transition, promoting social inclusion, and empowering communities worldwide. Throughout 2024, the foundation celebrates the world’s youth by raising awareness of their social and environmental impact and mobilizing the support of company employees. Looking to the future, engaging youth, promoting and supporting solutions for tomorrow towards a fair energy transition, are the goals of the call for projects launched across 5 continents in partnership with Ashoka. Following its initial edition in Europe, Middle East and Africa, and a second one recently concluded in Asia Pacific, the campaign continues in South and North America in October 2024.
About the Schneider Electric Foundation
In a world where social and environmental challenges are more widespread and more urgent than ever, the Schneider Electric Foundation supports innovative and forward-looking initiatives to give as many people as possible the energy they need to succeed.
Always forward-looking and optimistic, the goal of the Schneider Electric Foundation is to play a part in creating a fairer, less carbon-intensive society that gives future generations the tools to transform our world.
About Ashoka
Ashoka is the largest global network of leading social entrepreneurs — individuals with new ideas to systemically address the world’s biggest challenges and the entrepreneurial skill to transform those ideas into national, regional and global social impact. Over 40 years, Ashoka has supported more than 3,800 social entrepreneurs in 90 countries with solutions addressing society’s most pressing issues. Ashoka’s vision is a world in which Everyone is a Changemaker — a society that responds quickly and effectively to challenges, and where everyone has the freedom, confidence and societal support to address any social problem.
For more information, visit ashoka.org.
