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Four student association winners of the Veolia Student Solidarity Awards 2016

On 23 June Veolia’s CEO, Antoine Frérot presented the Veolia Student Solidarity Awards to four student associations to reward their innovative, solidarity projects related to the Veolia Foundation’s areas of action.
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The first prize was presented to Smart Cycle : this student association from the Institut d’Administration des Entreprises in Aix-en-Provence (France) created an innovative web and mobile crowd recycling application in order to develop local solutions for recycling urban waste. The Smart Cycle solution uses geolocation to pinpoint objects that their owners want to give away or exchange. It then uses databases, community platforms and social networks to bring the various stakeholders together, thereby forming a collaborative community.
 
The second prize goes to the organization Rural International Student Exchange from Tsinghua University (Beijing), for their domestic anti-arsenic filter project. This was in two villages in Shanxi Province, China, a rural area with high levels of arsenic in the water. This filter proved its effectiveness with a 92% rate of absorption of the concentration of arsenic in the water. The results of the experiment were published in the scientific journal Chemosphere.
 
Finally two student associations working on development aid, won equal 3rd prize: Lumières d’Afrique from Centrale-Supélec and Solidarité Etudiants en Médecine (SOLEM) from the Faculté Paris Descartes.

Lumières d’Afrique promotes access to electricity through the use of renewable energy. Working with a Cameroonian student association specializing in electrical engineering at the Institut Universitaire de la Côte (Douala, Cameroon), Lumières d’Afrique will improve the lighting and air conditioning in two orphanages in the south of the country (Akonolingua and Nkolandom), and in two dispensaries in the west of Cameroon (Bangang-Chefferie and Bandjoun).

SOLEM in collaboration with Voisins Solidaires Togo (VST) will extend a public health center in the village of Segno, in southern Togo. It will make it possible to improve the care of pregnant women and access to biological analyzes for seven villages with a total of 20,000 people.

 
 

Selection and awards for the projects

  • A jury of 7 members representing Veolia and higher education: Thierry Vandevelde, Executive Officer of the Veolia Foundation; Dominique Boizeau, Director of Communication for the Veolia Foundation; Brigitte Durand, Veolia Trades & Core Business Promotion Director; Lubena Krivtcheva, Veolia Director of Human Resources Bulgaria. And Jean-Paul Roumegas, Under-Director for International Affairs, Corporate Relations and Culture, CNOUS (Centre National des Œuvres Universitaires et Scolaires); François-Xavier Théry, ‎Director of Development and Enterprises - ‎Montpellier Business School; Marie Waltzer, Director of Development at the Université de Cergy-Pontoise.
     
  • 7 selection criteria: the quality of the application, the professionalism of the proposed approach, the feasibility and impact of the project, the synergies sought by the association, the support requested for capital expenditure and training, the involvement of local resources to sustain the project.
     
  • ​An award of €14,500 split between the winning associations, which also benefit from the support and expertise of a sponsor - a Veolia employee.

 

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