Friday 25th June 2021
Vote for Stamford in the Amazon Longitude Explorer Prize People's Choice Award
A Stamford student and an Old Stamfordian are among the 40 finalists competing for the Amazon Longitude Explorer Prize People’s Choice Award - developing new inventions to make the world a better place.You can support their project by voting here, before voting closes on the 2nd July.The project submitted by the SHS team is the 'ELECTDOOR' – an idea that harvests energy from every otherwise useless push of a door and converts it into another useful form to be used elsewhere in a building. Students Olga Kryl and Sophie Farr have constructed a working prototype, produced a business plan and produced a pitch video with the support of industry experts in both PR and technology.The prize of the £5000 People's Choice Award will be awarded to one school or youth group for their entry. The prize money can be used to help further develop the winning idea or for the school or youth group to invest in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and maths) and entrepreneurial resources - such as purchasing new equipment for science labs and technology workshops.In addition to the People’s Choice Award vote, the teams will be submitting their final ideas and a business plan to the Amazon Longitude Explorer Prize judging panel in July, with the overall grand prize winners earning £20,000 for their school or youth group and three runner-up teams earning £5,000 each.To read more about the competition, please click here. Lauren Kisser, Director at Amazon’s Development Centre in Cambridge and Amazon Longitude Explorer Prize judge, said: “Selecting the final 40 teams for the Amazon Longitude Explorer was challenging enough for the judges. Now people have an even tougher choice in voting for their favourite. There has been some serious ingenuity and creativity on show - from ocean cleaning robots, to an app that makes recycling easy, micro-turbines that generate electricity from your drainpipes and a phone case that sanitises your hands. These ideas have the potential to make a huge difference to our world and inspire additional future technologists.” Tris Dyson, Founder and Managing Director, Nesta Challenges said: “The Amazon Longitude Explorer Prize supports 11-16 year olds to grow their bright ideas into real-world technologies that will have a positive social impact. The 40 teams of talented entrepreneurs have worked extraordinarily hard to create and develop their outstanding ideas in the face of very difficult circumstances this last year. The People’s Choice Award vote is an opportunity for the public to show its support for these inspiring tech-for-good innovations and the young people who have worked so hard to build them.” 