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Geneva Challenge
27 November 2018

Finalists of the Geneva Challenge on Climate Change Announced

Each year, the Advancing Development Goals International Contest for Graduate Students invites teams of graduate students to devise innovative solutions to key international issues.

Each year, the Advancing Development Goals International Contest for Graduate Students invites teams of graduate students from all academic programmes to devise innovative and pragmatic solutions to key international issues. This year, the idea is to address the complex issues arising from climate change and how these challenges can be tackled to foster social and economic development.

66 project entries were submitted by 259 students from teams hailing from all over the world, with 15 teams selected as semi-finalists. This year, the external Jury Panel chose five finalist teams, one per continent:
 

  • ASIA | BRAC University

    A Step towards Sustainable Ecology: Green Urbanization' from Bangladesh. In order to tackle the issue of rising temperatures in cities, this team proposes an urban plantation business model that uses a mobile application named ‘Shamol’ to encourage and assist the residents of Dhaka in developing rooftop gardening.
     
  • NORTH AMERICA / OCEANIA | Columbia University

    DASH - Data Analytics for Sustainable Herding. Due to the impact of climate change in the western Sahel region, migration trends have brought pastoralists into lands occupied by sedentary farmers, resulting in major sources of high-risk conflict in the region. The DASH project aims to map and analyse changes in migration patterns, seasonality and urban and agricultural development using data from satellites, mobile telecommunications and GPS-enabled systems.
     
  • EUROPE | ETH Zurich

    Constructing Reservoir Dams in Deglacierizing Regions of the Nepalese Himalaya. Glacial and ice melt are the most palpable evidence of climate change in high mountains worldwide, as they act as barometers of global warming. This project’s goal is to resuscitate the hydrological function of glaciers in deglaciated high mountain environments by constructing reservoir dams, and to develop a methodology to obtain information about the geomorphology and geometry of glaciers.
     
  • AFRICA | Kenyatta University

    Maji Uhai - Rain Water Harvesting Solution for ASAL Areas: Leveraging Rooftop and Shallow Wells Collections to Widen Rural Catchment Areas in Kenya. The Maji Uhai project offers a solution to water resource management in Kenya, particularly the Arid and Semi-Arid Lands (ASAL), which make up about 80 percent of the country. The project seeks to enhance the rainwater harvesting capacity of households through shallow cisterns and roof catchments funnelled into tanks.
     
  • SOUTH AMERICA | University of Buenos Aires

    SEVI - Seed of Life. By introducing the “Seed of Life” in high schools this project focuses on raising awareness about our environment and the importance of protecting it. Students will be responsible for growing a tree from a seed, contributing to the reforestation of urban areas. An application will also be developed to monitor the germination and growth of the seed.   

The finalists will present and defend their projects at a special showcase event followed by the Award Ceremony  at the Graduate Institute on Tuesday, 27 November at 18:30 with a keynote speech from Kristian Parker, Vice-Chair of the Board of Trustees at the Oak Foundation. This year’s winning project will be awarded CHF 10,000; the two teams in second place will receive CHF 5,000 each and the two teams in third place, CHF 2,500 each.
 

  • More details about all five projects and further information on this year’s Challenge can be found on our website.
  • Follow us on our Facebook page to keep updated on this year’s ceremony and the launch of the next Geneva Challenge to come.