fig.: The image shows Maritza Morales Casanova - one of five Young Laureates of the 2012 Rolex Awards for Enterprise - in front of building material with scholars from her education program in her environmental park in Yucatán. The environmentalist spreads the idea that every single living being has a place in the world and is entitled to respect; Merida, Yucatán, Mexico, 2012. Photo: RAE12MM_01-022¦ (C) Rolex Awards/François Schaer. Deadline of the next 2014 Rolex Awards for Enterprise is on 31 May 2013.

The initiatives reach from environmental education programs for children in Mexico to smartphone designs for blind people in India.

Maritza Morales Casanova from Mexico speaks in a video about her project that foresees building up an environmental park in Yucatán. Main focus of her work is education by following the motto 'learning with fun' and the training of kids for more consciousness for sustainability. One of the reasons for her activities is that, as she states, "A normal school in Mexico has no environmental education. The government is trying to include some information in textbooks – but the teachers really have no teaching materials."  rolexawards.com/profiles/young_laureates/maritza_morales_casanova

Interaction designer Sumit Dagar from India had the idea to help sight-impaired people with touch-responsive smartphones. He explains that touching the phone is for blind people an advantage because the English-language artificially 'speaking' phone is for many people not easy to understand in India. Sumit Dagar continues, "Another disadvantage of speech is the lack of privacy when users’ messages or emails are read out by a talking phone.” Find the details about the project with video on rolexawards.com/profiles/young_laureates/sumit_dagar/project.

fig.: The image below shows Sumit Dagar (left) - he is one of five laureates of the 2012 Rolex Awards for Enterprise - together with his collaborator Ravi Bagree who is responsible for the phone technology. Both hope to develop a fully interactive Braille smartphone in five years; New Delhi, India, 2012. Photo: RAE12SD_02-016 ¦ (C) Rolex Awards/Ambroise Tézenas. Deadline of the next 2014 Rolex Awards for Enterprise is on 31 May 2013.




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