iFixit

iFix…The World: The Sustainia Award

Our society is really good at building stuff. We’ve proven that we can build just about anything and everything—from large structures to small devices to entire communities. But why stop there? What happens when we challenge ourselves to build something even greater? What if we tried to build a whole new world? Literally.

Sustainia is an innovation platform in Copenhagen that celebrates today’s top visionaries. These are people who are chipping away at the world’s biggest problems using tangible solutions—all in the pursuit of a sustainable future.

Sustainia logoDoomsday prophets are quick to tell us that we’re destroying the earth and treating each other unethically. But Sustainia isn’t interested in scaring people—they’re interested in inspiring people.

Want to travel without harming the planet? Want to know how to salvage the mass amounts of food thrown away every year?  Want to sport fashion that is ethically sound for the workers producing it? These are the tricky, uncomfortable, fear-inducing questions of our generation—but Sustainia is finding and celebrating the folks with the best answers to date.

This month Sustainia has nominated the top 10 visionaries from around the globe for the annual Sustainia Award. These visionaries hail from 10 different sectors: Buildings, Food, Fashion, Transportation, IT, Education, Energy, Cities, and Resources. And by November they will recognize the one visionary believed to offer the world the solution, technology, or project with the most potential.

Five hundred applicants, in over 79 countries, sought to be in the running for the 2013 Sustainia Award. Some of this year’s finalists include Liter of Light, TaKaDu, Netural.com, and Tvilight. And iFixit is incredibly humbled and honored to be in the running with them!

Last year, Azuri Technologies won the Sustainia Award for its work with the Indigo solar solution for off-grid residents in the developing world. Their bragging right is that they combine “mobile phone and solar technology to provide pay-as-you-go solar power that replaces kerosene and phone charging services, while cutting users’ energy spend by as much as 50%.”

So check out all of this year’s nominees here and vote for your favorite solution, technology, project on Sustainia’s Facebook or Twitter.

Voting runs from September 19-October 31. The finalist will be decided on and announced by honorary Chair Arnold Schwarzenegger as well as the Sustainia committee on November 2, 2013.