Katerva

Katerva is a San Diego based non-profit organization which promotes sustainability by recognizing initiatives around the world, and then supports them with pro bono services and consulting from some of the global Who's Who in sustainability. Since launching Katerva in 2009, it has been called the Nobel Prize for Sustainability by Reuters. Katerva was founded in 2009 by Canadian author and business intelligence thinker Terry Waghorn, who spent decades at KPMG as special intelligence.

Katerva builds competency in three areas:

The ability to unearth breakthrough innovations from around the world – before they become widely known. This is achieved through a global network of innovation scouts combined with a large contingent of in-house researchers.

The ability to efficiently and effectively separate the good from the great breakthrough innovations using a combination of advanced machine learning tools and human intuition.

The ability to help nurture and develop the leadership teams and market presence of today’s hottest new companies. It is in this area that Katerva is currently focused on building capability. In addition to providing the most promising innovators with valuable feedback, mentoring, visibility, and strategic introductions, Katerva is working towards being able to provide companies with modularized education and training tools.

Katerva winners tackle global environmental and social problems that have a chance to be solved within the next decade. The winner of the 2015 Katerva Award went to The Ocean Cleanup, a clean technology company that has built a massive sieve to passively collect millions of tonnes of plastic pieces from the Great Pacific garbage patch.

Katerva states that its mission is “To create the world’s first truly open platform for change.”[1]

Name

The name "Katerva" (Kah-tair-vah) comes from the Latin caterva, meaning “crowd”.[2] Katerva's goal is to mobilze and energize the crowd to collaborate on creating our sustainable future.

Awards

Katerva began as a set of awards intended to recognize the best ideas in sustainability. But it has evolved to become an acceleration hub.

The awards are broken up into 10 meaningful categories each year and include the following themes:

The Grand Prize winner who gets the Katerva Award, is announced every year at Katerva’s annual gala.

2015 Katerva Award Winner

The Ocean Cleanup. Founded by a Dutch teenager, The Ocean Cleanup uses passive wave energy to suck plastics from the sea. More than half of the Great Pacific garbage patch can be cleaned in 10 years, according to feasibility studies. The Ocean Cleanup will release its pilot in June, 2016.

2014 Katerva Award Winner

Khan Academy. This open online educational resource enables universal and personalized learning across disciplines. Evolving from a series of YouTube videos, the Khan Academy demonstrates the potential of open,accessible, and inclusive educational materials. The platform contains over 5,500 instructional videos and 100,000 practice problems covering more than 30 subjects, encompassing everything from finance to biology and art history. Its open nature means that Khan Academy can bring educational value to all contexts and settings, from off-grid schools in remote areas to curious retirees. In the classroom, data dashboards help its 350,000 registered teachers to monitor their students’ progress and provide targeted assistance, with measured improvements in performance.

2014 Finalists in their respective categories include:

2013 Katerva Award Winner

A 22-year old plastics recycler based in Richmond, CA, MBA Polymers has developed a unique technology to take complex plastic waste from cast-off computers, electronics and junked cars that other recyclers can’t handle.They claim that they are “mining tomorrow’s plastics” instead of making them from petrochemicals.

2012 Katerva Award Winner

Bioneedle, invented by veterinarian Gijsbert van de Wijdeven, is a company that develops tiny, biodegradable mini-implants filled with vaccines that are thermo-stabilized. They solve many problems of current vaccines: No needle is involves so needle disposal is not a problem. The vaccines do not need to be kept cold. Implantation is quick and painless. The material surrounding the vaccine absorbs body fluids and degrades within minutes. The goal: replace billions of contaminated syringes, metal needles and vials, reduce hepatitis and HIV infection and vaccinate 25 million more children worldwide.

2011 Katerva Award Winner

Sanergy, which was founded by MIT alumni, provides low-cost, sustainable, franchised sanitation centers throughout Kenya to address one of the biggest problems in developing economies today—poor and inefficient access to clean and safe sanitation.

2011 Award Finalists

[3]

Support

Katerva works in conjunction with a number of different organizations and individuals to create and utilize its network.

Well known organizations and individuals associated with Katerva:

References

  1. ↑ "What is Katerva?". Retrieved 2 October 2012.
  2. ↑ "Grand Prize Winner of 2011 Katerva Awards announced at the Lincoln Center in New York". Retrieved 2 October 2012.
  3. ↑ Adams, Susan. "The World's Best Sustainability Idea: The Gold In Human Waste". Retrieved 2 October 2012.
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