Mobile for Development (M4D)

VODAFONE AMERICAS FOUNDATION ANNOUNCES LAST CALL
FOR NOMINATIONS FOR SECOND ANNUAL WIRELESS INNOVATION PROJECT
Deadline Date of February 1, 2010 to Apply for Up to $650,000 in Cash and Prizes for Wireless Projects Demonstrating Promise Of Solving Critical Global Issues and mHealth

The Vodafone Americas Foundation announced the last call for nominations for the second annual Wireless Innovation Project, a competition to identify and reward the most promising advances in wireless related technologies that can be used to solve critical problems around the globe. Proposals will be accepted through February 1, 2010, with the final winners announced on April 19, 2010 at the annual Global Philanthropy Forum in Redwood City, California.

“We’re encouraged by the entries we’ve received to date, and hope to see more come in before the deadline,” said Terry Kramer, President Vodafone Americas Foundation. “Last year’s winners produced impressive technologies that now have the potential to make a significant impact in developing countries.”

Vodafone Americas Foundation will award a total of $600,000 to the first ($300,000), second ($200,000) and third-prize ($100,000) winners of the Wireless Innovation Project. In addition, the mHealth Alliance Award will be given to the project demonstrating the most potential to solve critical health issues, particularly in developing countries. The winner of the mHealth Alliance Award will receive a cash prize and benefits totaling $50,000, including participation in Santa Clara University’s Center for Science, Technology, and Society’s Global Social Benefit Incubator Program (GSBI™). The winner will also receive strategic and networking assistance from the mHealth Alliance, an umbrella group founded by the Rockefeller Foundation, United Nations Foundation and Vodafone Foundation that supports cross-sector collaboration in delivering healthcare to the furthest reaches of wireless communications.

Although projects may be global in scope, applicants for the Wireless Innovation Project must be nonprofits, educational institutions or social entrepreneurs based in the United States. Up to $650,000 will be awarded to wireless projects demonstrating exceptional promise to solve a critical global issue in the following fields: education; health; access to communication; the environment; or economic development. Moreover, the innovation can also represent a significant advancement in wireless related technology to help solve issues such as connectivity, language barriers and energy use. Projects must be at a stage of development where an advanced prototype or field test can occur during the award period.

A panel of judges from the fields of wireless engineering, international development, social entrepreneurship and business will evaluate the applications for their potential to solve a critical global issue in the fields of education, health, access to communication, the environment or economic development.

Complete detailed information about eligibility and an application can be found at http://project.vodafone-us.com/.

2009 Winners

Energy Harvesting Active Network Tags (EnHANTs) (First Place Winner, $300,000) –Wireless tags that harness solar and kinetic energy, and will be carried by people and embedded in buildings. In the event of a disaster – a building collapse or a fire -- the tags will communicate with each other and create a wireless network that will provide rescue forces information regarding who is in a building and where they are located. (Developed by Columbia University)

CellScope (Second Place Winners, $200,000) – A compact, high-resolution cell phone microscope using cell phone cameras to do onsite microscopic medical diagnosis in the developing world. The CellScope is particularly useful for infectious disease diagnosis, especially TB and malaria. (Developed by University of California, Berkeley)

CelloPhone (Second Place Winners, $200,000) – A wireless and lens-free blood and fluid analyzer that can capture digital cellular images in the field, and transmit them to a central medical lab for diagnostic purposes. The CelloPhone is capable of monitoring HIV, malaria and TB in developing countries. (Developed by University of California, Los Angeles)

About the Vodafone Americas Foundation

Vodafone Americas Foundation is part of Vodafone’s global network of foundations. We are affiliated with Vodafone Group Plc, the world's leading mobile telecommunications company, with ownership interests in 31 countries and Partner Markets in more than 40 countries. As of June 30, 2009, Vodafone had approximately 315 million proportionate customers worldwide. In the U.S., our foundation directs its philanthropic activities towards the San Francisco Bay and the Metro Denver Areas where most of our employees live and work, and where we strive to make a positive and enduring impact on our communities. The Foundation is driven by a passion for the world around us. We make grants that help people in our communities and around the world lead fuller lives.

New mHealth Alliance Award to Spur Innovation in Wireless Solutions to Global Health Challenges

Award provides dedicated mHealth funding as part of Vodafone Americas Foundation’s Wireless Innovation Project

To spur innovation in the development of wireless solutions to global health challenges, the Vodafone Americas Foundation and the mHealth Alliance announced today a partnership that will expand the Vodafone Americas Foundation’s Wireless Innovation Project to include the new mHealth Alliance Award. The award will be granted to the developer of an innovative wireless technology with the most potential to address critical health challenges, especially in developing regions.

“In places where roads remain unpaved, and where basic infrastructure such as clean water and electricity are scant, mobile phones already have become an empowering force for millions,” said David Aylward, Executive Director of the mHealth Alliance. “The mHealth Alliance Award challenges innovators and social entrepreneurs to use mobile technology to advance health delivery in even the most remote environments, such as through improved diagnosis, treatment or access to information.”

The winner of the mHealth Alliance Award will receive a cash prize and benefits totaling $50,000, including participation in Santa Clara University’s Center for Science, Technology, and Society’s Global Social Benefit Incubator Program (GSBI™), a highly competitive program that connects innovators with a Silicon Valley support network and provides instruction on how to achieve maximum sustainability and impact in social enterprises. In addition, the winner will receive strategic and networking assistance from the mHealth Alliance, an umbrella group founded by the Rockefeller Foundation, United Nations Foundation and Vodafone Foundation that supports cross-sector collaboration in delivering healthcare to the furthest reaches of wireless communications.

“We are thrilled to partner with the mHealth Alliance to further encourage new technology in the field,” said June Sugiyama, Executive Director of the Vodafone Americas Foundation. “This is an ideal partnership because we share a common goal of improving livelihoods through wireless and mobile technology.”

The Vodafone Americas Foundation Wireless Innovation Project is now underway, with applications being accepted through February 1, 2010. Although projects may be global in scope, the applicants must be from nonprofits based in the United States. A panel of judges from the fields of wireless engineering, international development, social entrepreneurship and business will evaluate the applications for their potential to solve a critical global issue in the fields of education, health, access to communication, the environment or economic development. Vodafone Americas Foundation will award first ($300,000), second ($200,000) and third ($100,000) prizes, and the new mHealth Alliance Award. The winner of the mHealth Alliance Award is eligible for the first three prizes as well. mHealth Alliance Award and Wireless Innovation Project winners will be announced at the Global Philanthropy Forum in April 19, 2010.

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2009 Wireless Innovation Project Winners
Last year’s Wireless Innovation Project winners included two second prizes awarded to mHealth related technologies-- CellScope, a mobile microscope capable of identifying infectious diseases such as TB and malaria; and CelloPhone, a mobile blood and fluid analyzer that can identify and transmit results from fluid samples in the field, The first prize was awarded to EnHANTs, a disaster recovery system that can locate people trapped by fires or structural collapse. Complete detailed information about eligibility and an application can be found at http://www.project.vodafone-us.com/

About the Vodafone Americas Foundation
Vodafone Americas Foundation is part of Vodafone’s global family of foundations. We are affiliated with Vodafone Group Plc, the world's leading mobile telecommunications company, with ownership interests in 31 countries and Partner Markets in more than 40 countries. As of June 30, 2009, Vodafone had approximately 315 million proportionate customers worldwide. In the U.S., our foundation directs its philanthropic activities towards the San Francisco Bay and the Metro Denver Areas where most of our employees live and work, and where we strive to make a positive and enduring impact on our communities. The Foundation is driven by a passion for the world around us. We make grants that help people in our communities and around the world lead fuller lives. For more information about the Vodafone Americas Foundation, visit http://www.vodafone-us.com/

About the mHealth Alliance
The mHealth Alliance is dedicated to enabling the delivery of quality healthcare to the farthest reaches of wireless networks in the developing world. Created by the United Nations Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, and Vodafone Foundation, the Alliance’s mission is to be a catalyst and accelerant, supporting leaders, celebrating successes, creating hard research, filling gaps, making connections, and forging public-private partnerships. More information is available at www.mhealthalliance.org or info@mhealthalliance.org.

About Santa Clara University’s Center for Science, Technology, and Society
Santa Clara University is committed to educating leaders of competence, conscience, and compassion who will help fashion a more just, humane, and sustainable world. As a University center of distinction, the Center for Science, Technology, and Society undertakes three integrative activities: educating students, engaging the public, and exemplifying the realization of social impact through our flagship Global Social Benefit Incubator Program (GSBI™). In so doing, we forge strong connections across local and global businesses, civic and academic institutions, and the technology innovators of Silicon Valley in the context of Jesuit values of service. For more information visit www.scu.edu/sts or contact Sherrill Dale at sdale@scu.edu.

Innovative technology has the potential to save lives, and wireless technologies hold a special promise for vexing global problems. In some resource-limited areas, access to reliable wireless service is among the only infrastructure platforms available.

That’s why the Vodafone Americas Foundation was delighted to give away more than $700,000 through our first Wireless Innovation Project, a competition that identifies and funds unique innovations using wireless related technology offering the best potential to address critical social issues around the world.

Too often promising social innovations languish because they don’t have a platform for effective and efficient delivery. We designed the competition to encourage cross-disciplinary cooperation within universities and encouraged non-governmental organizations and non-profits to apply. We also wanted to add the private sector rigor to the process of competing - a daunting online application forced teams to challenge academic and theoretical assumptions with real-world data.

Although fifty-one universities and 45 NGOs representing 25 states completed the online application, only nine finalists were selected to present before a world-class panel of judges. The panel represented the best minds in wireless technologies, global development and philanthropy.

The contestants heard feedback from venture capitalists who judge new technologies every day, to global mobile development experts who evaluate how technology can actually be deployed in the field, to engineers who evaluated whether the innovation was truly an innovation. For some contestants, it was the first time they had the chance to present their innovation outside their immediate field of research.

On April 23 the top three finalists shared the cash prize of $700,000 and were showcased at the Global Philanthropy Forum (www.philanthropyforum.org). The 2009 Wireless Innovation Project winners are:

· Active Networked Tags for Disaster Recovery Applications ­-- A system that uses wireless devices to track and locate survivors trapped by fires and structural collapse.

· CelloPhone ­-- A lensfree imaging platform on a cellphone for disease detection and diagnostics using digital holograms of the cells or bacteria, that is capable of monitoring HIV, malaria, tuberculosis and various other diseases.

· CellScope: Mobile Microscopy for Disease Diagnosis --­ A conventional cell phone is transformed into a compact, high-resolution, handheld microscope with the capability of on-site disease diagnosis and wireless transmission of patient data to clinical centers for remote diagnosis & treatment.

We at the Vodafone Americas Foundation were humbled by the ingenuity and sheer talent of all the applicants who participated. Come see project summaries, photos and video of the Wireless Innovation Project winners at http://project.vodafone-us.com

We hope that each and every one of the Wireless Innovation Project finalists will succeed. Success for us will mean hundreds of thousands of lives saved when these incredible innovations are fully unleashed.

Hi,

My name is Brittany Hinchliff and I work for the Vodafone Americas Foundation. We launched a new initiative called the Vodafone Wireless Innovation Project, where we’re seeking to identify and fund the best innovations using wireless related technology to address critical social issues around the world.

I hope you will help spread the word to potential applicants by forwarding the attached fact sheet and press release, and directing them to the Foundation website at: http://www.vodafone-us.com/innovation.html and pressing the "enter" button below it, or directly reach the Project website at: http://project.vodafone-us.com

Three winners will be awarded prizes of $300,000, $200,000 and $100,000 for unique, late-stage wireless innovations that offer the best potential for creating social change in the areas of education, health, economic development, the environment and access to communication.

The Vodafone Wireless Innovation Project is open to projects submitted by applicants from universities and nonprofit organizations based in the United States. Eligible projects must:

· Demonstrate a multi-disciplinary approach that uses an innovation in wireless related technology to address a critical global issue

· Hold the potential for replication and large scale impact

· Include a business plan or basic framework for financial sustainability and rollout

Applications will be accepted online from November 17 to February 2 at http://project.vodafone-us.com/

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us at project@vodafone.com

Thank you very much for spreading the word about the Wireless Innovation Project, and helping to discover innovations that can change the world.

Brittany