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Congratulations to 2013 Award Winners

David de Rothschild and Emmanuel Jal

Meet British adventurer and ecologist David de Rothschild and tour his one-of-a-kind catamaran, the PLASTIKI. This amazing boat is made from 12,500 plastic bottles assembled with an earth-friendly glue created from sugar and cashews. David made maritime history in 2010 when he sailed his unique recycled ship 8,000 miles across the Pacific. His expedition was an engineering first, bringing global attention to the South Pacific garbage patch – a swirling mass of plastic trash twice the size of Texas. To honor this achievement, David will be the recipient of the Engineering & Humanity Week 2013 Visionary Award

Hear world-famous Hip-Hop artist Emmanuel Jal, the 2013 EandH Week Humanitarian Award winner. This Sudanese musician and former child soldier is a humanitarian advocate for social justice and human rights. Jal’s international hit We Want Peace features strings by Peter Gabriel and his message has garnered support from George Clooney, Alicia Keys, Richard Branson, Kofi Annan, and more. Jal is a former child soldier and Lost Boy from Sudan. The documentary War Child about Jal won the ’08 Audience Award at the Tribeca Film Festival.

The Water Tap at The Living Village is being dedicated to Katie Spotz, adventurer and safe water activist. In 2010, she set the world record as the youngest person to row solo across the Atlantic (3,000 miles). Along the way, she raised $150,000 for safe water projects in Haiti, Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Kenya. Since then, her adventurous spirit continues to raise awareness about worthy causes. Her “Schools for Water” program raised $100,000 with the help of 10 U.S. schools to provide clean drinking water to 10 Kenyan schools.

We have all heard the stark warning signs: the world population is increasing, access to fresh water is declining, our oceans are under threat of overfishing & environmental damage, and one of the great sources of conflict in the 21^st century may well be water. We face the challenge of “peak water” and running out of the one resource we truly need to survive

Yet there is good news. At Engineering & Humanity Week 2013 we will focus on the positive ripple effects people can inspire when confronted with our current challenges.

Other E&H Week events in association with Southern Methodist University (SMU) include:

Barefoot on the Green: music festival and earth celebration

Immersion Design Competition: Biomimicry + Water + Refugees

The Water DistributionCamp

Student Water Bottle Challenge

Seminar – What is it like to work in a humanitarian crisis?

Living on One – conversation and documentary - The experience of two students who travelled to Guatemala and lived on a dollar a day

Global Thought Leaders Panel – Water and Refugees

Click here to see a complete EandH Week Program

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2013 Participants

Louise Bloom Alex Betts Jeff Ball Silvastone