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Prof. Askwar Hilonga, Tanzania

Professor Askwar Hilonga invented Nanofilter®, a low-cost and sustainable water purification system particularly suited to the needs of local people in Tanzania.

Growing up in rural Tanzania, Professor Hilonga suffered from waterborne diseases throughout his childhood. He used his scientific expertise in nanotechnology and his local knowledge to develop a filter based on nanomaterials. Professor Hilonga worked with the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Science and Technology to roll out his innovative water purification system to help those for whom safe drinking water was still a luxury, like it was for his family during his childhood.

Professor Hilonga says the real challenge for any water-purification system is acceptance and regular use by the community. Women have been instrumental to introducing water filtration as part of daily life in rural Tanzania. Most of the water stations where the new system is being tested are managed by women. The long term goal is to encourage water purification good practices across Tanzania and other African countries where rural populations suffer from waterborne diseases.

Q&A

What does winning the Commonwealth Innovation Award mean to you/your organisation?

“Winning the Commonwealth Innovation Award will increase my innovation visibility, reputation, network, and potential to attract more customers, mentors, and sponsors for scale-up to many countries around the world. I am so grateful!”

How would you use being the recipient of this award to influence others and how would it impact your career?

“I will inspire many young innovators around the world, particularly those who are coming from underserved communities like me. I will include the award in my CV and I am confident that it will attract more awards and grants to support scale-up to other places within Tanzania and beyond.”

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Kaif, a 20 year old architecture student, researched how architecture could prevent the spread of disease. He designed a prefabricated sustainable shelter, SpaceEra, that would not only help reduce transmission of the virus but could also house refugees worldwide in the future.

Kaif’s design has been recognised by the UN under the top 11 emerging innovation start-ups solving climate challenges. He is now known for motivating his fellow youth trying to imitate his approach to start their own sustainability projects and initiatives.

SpaceEra website

Q&A

What does winning the Commonwealth Innovation Award mean to you/your organization?

“Winning the Commonwealth Innovation Award lifts my confidence to a greater level and motivates to me work even harder than yesterday and innovate unprecedented solutions to achieve a sustainable future. I pledge to become the voice of the youth transforming the Commonwealth and to Be the Change!”

How would you use being the recipient of this award to influence others and how would it impact your career?“I plan to conduct mentorship programs for grass route innovators to enrich their knowledge and motivate them to work towards social and environmental issues. In the upcoming year, I wish to pursue a Masters in Architecture and harness my future career towards STEM innovations and youth leadership in the multilateral domain. I aim to devote my career towards the well-being of the mass.”

Marie-Claire Nabila Kuja is a nurse turned social entrepreneur and the innovator of KujaEcoPads which is Cameroon’s first 100% biodegradable sanitary napkins made from banana stem fibers. KujaEcoPads has empowered more than 30000 girls in Cameroon to stay in school during their monthly period and created more than a hundred jobs for low-income women who are involved in the entire value chain.

Marie-Claire is a menstrual hygiene activist, a sanitary pad campaigner and a women and girls empowerment champion with a great passion for good health and wellness for all women and girls. Her vision for KujaEcoPads is to have the product as a household name not only in Cameroon and all over Africa and the rest of the world.

KujaEcoPads website

Q&A

What does winning the Commonwealth Innovation Award mean to you/your organisation?

“It is fantastic to win one of the world’s most prestigious awards. I couldn’t believe it. I was proud to be on the shortlist but didn’t know I’ll win. It still feels like a dream. This is one of the highlights of my life. Winning this award has energized me to do more, to continue to reach for the stars, and to set my eyes on my next big goal while believing in my dreams always.”

How would you use being the recipient of this award to influence others and how would it impact your career?

“This award will boost the morale of my employees and improve motivation. When you receive a prestigious award, everyone on your team feels better. They appreciate being recognized for their hard work. This award will increase our visibility and help to boost the company profile. It will open pathways for partnerships at a global level and bring new connections and networking opportunities.”

Joshua Forte is a sustainable environmental management practitioner and the founder and CEO of Red Diamond Compost Inc, a biotech social enterprise that focuses on research, development, and commercialization of clean and green agrochemical solutions.

Made primarily from organic waste materials and invasive plant species, the solutions support fragile organisms responsible for building soil structure, storing organic soil carbon, cycling nutrients to plants, and protecting pollinating insects.

Joshua has expanded his expertise to focus on removing pollutants from the environment and improving climate resilience and food & nutrition security.

Red Diamond Compost Inc. website

Q&A

What does winning the Commonwealth Innovation Award mean to you/your organisation?

“We are truly honored. Winning the Commonwealth Innovation Award is a major milestone and achievement for Red Diamond Compost at this point in our journey. We expect this caliber of recognition for our business and our movement to only propel us to even greater heights. We look forward to the new connections and new partners that we will meet through this outstanding opportunity.”

How would you use being the recipient of this award to influence others and how would it impact your career?

“Through our journey of seeing a need bigger than ourselves and being determined to go after it, despite the challenges and numerous setbacks along the way, giving up was never an option. We seek to live as an example and pass on what we have learned, especially to the youth in our communities. For us, partnerships are vital as we intend to use this opportunity to amplify the reach of our work and its impact.”

Kua Beng Chu and Nur Ashikin Arbi have been actively involved in aquatic animal health research focusing on parasites. Using information of marine leech parasite life cycle, they have developed Break & Protect 2 (BP2) which is able to reduce losses of marine leech infestation in farmed fish.

BP2 is currently the only physical anti-leech device, which does not involve any usage of chemicals thus reducing pollution in the environment. Placing and removing the device in and out of the cages continually over a certain fixed period helps to lower the population of marine leeches from infesting the farmed fish significantly. BP2 provides a long-term solution towards sustainability and cost savings.

The research scientists led the BP2 project at the Parasitology Laboratory of National Fish Health Research Division at Fisheries Research Institute, Department of Fisheries Malaysia.

Q&A

What are your plans or what do you hope to achieve with your innovation in the next few years?

“We hope this innovation can make significant impacts in the effort to reduce the usage of chemicals and provides a long-term solution towards chemical pollution before it enters into our food chain or accumulates in the environment over the years.”

What kind of support would you like to grow your innovation from other stakeholders such government, international organisations and the business community?

“Support from government and business communities through recognition of BP2 as a fish health management tool/system could increase production yield and create a sustainable aquaculture environment. Support from international organisations and global connections will further promote BP2 as a user friendly product for producing healthy fishes and boost the aquaculture economy.”

Arwa’s background in Biochemistry propelled his interest into bio-ethanol fuel manufacturing. It began as a classroom experiment and transformed into a business centred on providing low income households with affordable clean cooking energy by converting invasive water hyacinth into ethanol fuel.

While ethanol is traditionally made by adding yeast to products like sorghum, barley and sugar cane, CIST Ethanol Fuel uses water hyacinth, an invasive plant found in abundance in Lake Victoria. Unlike other materials used to produce ethanol, water hyacinth contains strong cellulose bonds. Arwa manufactured an enzyme which breaks these bonds through fermentation, which takes place once the hyacinth has been cleaned and shredded. Laboratory tests found that CIST Ethanol has a low sulphur content and releases minimal emissions when burnt, making it safe for cooking.

Kenyans living in rural areas and informal settlements mostly use firewood, kerosene and wick stoves to cook, all of which are costly, pose fire hazards, and have severe health and environmental implications. CIST Ethanol is nearly 40% cheaper than kerosene, and sold to entrepreneurs in refugee camps, where they resell it to make an income. Arwa has built his own equipment to separate and distil the ethanol after finding that commercially available equipment, which produces 2,000 litres of ethanol per day, is unaffordable. He plans to manufacture and sell the equipment to other small businesses.

Cist Ethanol Fuel website

Q&A

What are your plans or what do you hope to achieve with your innovation in the next few years?

“We plan to increase bio-ethanol production to 3000 litres per day which is enough to supply 9000 households with clean cooking energy and 10 schools with alcohol based hand sanitisers. We plan to install 20 Automatic Ethanol fuel dispenser machines in low income communities which is expected to reduce the cost of ethanol fuel by 50% by eliminating the cost of packaging and branding. We also plan to market 9000 single burner ethanol cook stoves.”

What kind of support would you like to grow your innovation from other stakeholders such government, international organisations and the business community?

“We need financial support to purchase machinery to upscale bio-ethanol fuel production and to purchase and market dispenser machines and ethanol cook-stoves. We need technical support to leverage Cloud and IoT technology and provide CIST bio-ethanol fuel using a dense network of cloud connected ethanol Automatic Dispenser Machines. These will primarily be used as automatic ethanol fuel dispenser machines as well as digital media machines with video and radio for advertisement purposes.”

Elizabeth Grace’s passion for the environment and sustainability has been realized through Aggie Global Pty Ltd an ecommerce platform to help farmers connect to new buyers and to earn a better living to support themselves and their families.

Aggie Global is a social business that enables farmers to access new markets and address poverty in remote communities. For buyers, they now have a way to buy locally grown produce online and support Fijian farmers from home. Through their ecommerce platform and workshops, Aggie Global has helped farmers increase their income by up to 5 times.

Aggie Global’s website

Q&A

What are your plans or what do you hope to achieve with your innovation in the next few years?

“Over the next few years, Aggie Global aims to increase and spread our impact across the Asia-Pacific. We will be duplicating our Fijian model in other Pacific Islands to connect remote farmers to new markets. We will also be mimicking this model in Australia as we work with indigenous suppliers to wild harvest and create new products from their traditional foods.”

What kind of support would you like to grow your innovation from other stakeholders such government, international organisations and the business community?

“To best support us and our farmers, we recently launched our Crowdfunding Campaign, which acts as a monthly subscription so you can make positive social impact in Fiji, every month. Your impact will range from providing boxes of fresh fruit and vegetables to families in need, where all products are sourced locally; to sponsoring a workshop to empower our farmers.”

Juliet Namujju is the founder and CEO of Kimuli Fashionability, a sustainable fashion label transforming the waste crisis in Africa into employment opportunities for disabled tailors by imparting creative skills training and ‘up-cycles’ waste materials, and blending them with African fabrics.

Juliet has been able to present her upcycled fashion at the Germany Bildkorrekturren Fair Fashion Conference 2017, won the Ugandan Ye-Community Award 2018, was a Tony Emelu Foundation Fellow for producing eco-friendly facemasks for the disabled, and was awarded winner of the ‘Global Greenpreneur Award 2019 by Ban-Ki-Moon.

Juliet grew up in poverty as an orphan with a single grandmother in a remote village in Uganda due to the victimisation of disability. Her grandmother was a tailor and inspired her as a child to use cut-offs and plastic waste to produce her own dolls because she could not afford buying her toys. What others threw away, Juliet saw as a resource. After attaining a certificate in fashion and design at the age of 20, Juliet founded Kimuli Fashionability.

Kimuli Fashionability website

Q&A

What are your plans or what do you hope to achieve with your innovation in the next few years?

“I hope to develop and execute sales and marketing plans, accommodate 10-30 persons with disabilities at a time to boost our production capacity, implement quality plans and train tailors for continuous quality improvement. I also plan to create a fashionability teaching program for revenue, increase sales partners through ecommerce platforms, ebranding the label from the logo to cotton product brand-tags which are customised and needed in bulk.”

What kind of support would you like to grow your innovation from other stakeholders such government, international organizations and the business community?

“I would like to join strong networks for support, get funding from investors and donors to grow my brand. I hope to change people’s mindsets and make up-cycled fashion in Africa a household item. I wish to learn and share with other stakeholders, mentors, fellows, change makers, entrepreneurs, innovators and commonwealth experts.  I wish to enhance my entrepreneurial skills and gain knowledge on how to build strong business management systems and scaling up.”

Oluwatomisin (Tomi) Kolawole is the founder and CEO of Vinsighte, a digital health venture which uses AI to aid the visually impaired to read printed books independently and conveniently.

Vinsighte’s aim to give access to diagnostic tools, ultrasonic guiding aids, smart glasses and other services to aid the visually impaired population. Vinsighte has thousands of active users and has raised and generated thousands of dollars in revenue.

Tomi is passionate about using technology and innovation to transform Africa and aims to further influence and impact other youths in his community to be innovative and drive positive change in Africa.

Vinsighte website

Q&A

What are your plans or what do you hope to achieve with your innovation in the next few years?

“Our goal at Vinsighte is to further expand our impact across Africa within the next 3 years. We would be working on creating more solutions that would foster inclusiveness and job opportunities for the visually impaired and persons with disability and in the process  aim to increase our beneficiaries and customers to over 100,000 persons.”

What kind of support would you like to grow your innovation from other stakeholders such government, international organizations and the business community?

“We see partnerships and collaboration as a great means for scaling our technology and impact, so we are open to the opportunity to partner with organizations and institutions that can further collaborate with us to develop our technology and business. We are also open to investments that would drive our bid to scale our technology and impact across Africa and Europe.”

Samar has pioneered the use of truck art to address social issues in Pakistan. Billboard on wheels with messages and images drawn from local culture and traditions are helping change mindsets and promote the empowerment of girls and women in remote parts of Pakistan.

The trucks travel across and reach remote areas of Pakistan, serving as moving billboards. She integrates culture and indigenous folk art, film and folk music to create culturally relevant interventions that resonate with local audiences. Through these innovative tools of storytelling, she has raised awareness about harmful cultural practices, including compensation marriages.

Samar created her first documentary on the practice of ‘Swara,’ a form of compensation child marriage, in order to raise awareness and ultimately mobilise policymakers to abolish this practice. She filed the first Public Interest Litigation in the Supreme Court of Pakistan against the compensation marriages and illegal Jirga rulings, which made Swara officially illegal in Pakistan in 2004. This has prevented the potential compensation marriages of thousands of girls in Pakistan.

Ethnomedia website

Q&A

What are your plans or what do you hope to achieve with your innovation in the next few years?

“I want to continue using innovative tools for spreading awareness and changing mindsets.  Art has the power to connect people and educate audiences in an innovative way. Raising awareness is the first step to start localising SDGs. If done in collaboration with the local communities the message and the information will be owned by the audiences that matter. In future I would like to continue creating innovative, culturally relevant work that is  local, relevant and sustainable.”

What kind of support would you like to grow your innovation from other stakeholders such government, international organisations and the business community?

“I would like international organisations, business community, government and other stakeholders to understand the relevance of campaigns that are local and indigenous. Truck art is a tool that is easily acceptable and valued by the local communities. Not only that, they are the co-creators of the campaign. It is mostly men, the drivers of the vehicles, the owners of trucks, truck artists etc. who become the real advocates and change makers. Instead of replicating ideas from other parts of the world why not explore local and indigenous tools and ideas for a bigger impact.”

Steven W. Stavrou & Burak Berk Doluay co-founded CyprusInno, an island-wide entrepreneurship ecosystem working to connect entrepreneurs in Cyprus (and other post-conflict regions) to build peace via entrepreneurship, technology, and innovation.

Steven and the CyprusInno team operate The Base by CyprusInno, the first Social Impact Generator™ located in a demilitarized zone.  The Base is an ever-evolving, multi-purpose space that enables the co-creation of social and economic impact in various fields of focus by bringing together both the private and public sectors, as well as civil society, via a hybrid platform of digital and physical tools. The Base’s digital platform connects young people and entrepreneurs from across the political divide in Cyprus and promotes peacebuilding with the help of innovation.

Steven is also a startup mentor for the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network’s social business accelerator program, as well as a board member of GreekTech – the first New York City based tech community and startup accelerator built by and for Greek and Cypriot entrepreneurs.

Burak’s passion for community development and social change has led him to take an active role in several NGOs over the past 8 years. In September 2018, he was selected as one of the UN Young Leaders for the SDGs by the Office of the UN Secretary General’s Envoy on Youth.

CyprusInno website

Q&A

What do you/your organisation hope to achieve after your success in the Innovation Awards?

“We hope to continue our journey of building peace through entrepreneurship via the operation of our new innovation space, The Base by CyprusInno.  We are striving for an active community of start-up founders and innovators from both sides and communities of our island who work from, get trained and accelerated at, and attend events at The Base, among other things. If our vision here is successful, we’ll look to replicate our model in other regions.”

What are the biggest challenges you are facing to nurture and expand your innovation and its impact?“The geopolitical situation in and around our island makes achieving the long-term impact of peace and reconciliation a difficult prospect. However, we believe that at the community level we can do great things working together via business.  By limiting physical interactions, the COVID-19 pandemic has made peacebuilding through any means quite challenging. Digital peacebuilding through entrepreneurship is effective but is not enough on its own to sustain long term impact through innovation.”

In 2019, 27 law students from the University of the South Pacific started the initiative to take climate change to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for an Advisory Opinion. The initiative inspired a global youth-led campaign World’s Youth for Climate Justice (WYCJ).

The WYCJ campaign was to clarify the obligations of states to protect the rights of current and future generations from the adverse effects of climate change.

The ICJ Advisory Opinion campaign has grown beyond the Pacific where Pacific youth and partners are working tirelessly to galvanize support both regionally and internationally uniting youth from around the world in this mission.

World’s Youth for Climate Justice believes that an ICJ Advisory Opinion on climate change will not just summarise states’ existing obligations with regards to human rights and climate change, but can also deliver a progressive interpretation of those obligations and make global progress towards intergenerational equity and climate justice.

WYCJ’s website

Q&A

What do you/your organisation hope to achieve after your success in the Innovation Awards?

“The Award will help raise the visibility of the organisation and allow us to promote our innovation to new audiences to gather more support. We also aim to use the award funds to support the organisation in its transition into a registered organisation to enhance its influence and operational capacity.  This will allow us to work on climate justice, and show youth leadership in tackling the challenges of the climate crisis.”

What are the biggest challenges you are facing to nurture and expand your innovation and its impact?

“The success of the innovation lies in the support of UN member states. The barriers and limitations often faced by youth-led organisations in influencing such targets can be challenging but not impossible. We believe through grass-root action we can get a foot in the door to worldleaders, and advance climate justice internationally. As a result of COVID-19, the award will help us pivot more online activities to work towards an international movement.”