Katerva

Katerva is a San Diego based non-profit organization which promotes sustainability by recognizing initiatives around the world, and then supports them with pro bono services and consulting from some of the global Who's Who in sustainability. Since launching Katerva in 2009, it has been called the Nobel Prize for Sustainability by Reuters. Katerva was founded in 2009 by Canadian author and business intelligence thinker Terry Waghorn, who spent decades at KPMG as special intelligence.

Katerva builds competency in three areas:

The ability to unearth breakthrough innovations from around the world – before they become widely known. This is achieved through a global network of innovation scouts combined with a large contingent of in-house researchers.

The ability to efficiently and effectively separate the good from the great breakthrough innovations using a combination of advanced machine learning tools and human intuition.

The ability to help nurture and develop the leadership teams and market presence of today’s hottest new companies. It is in this area that Katerva is currently focused on building capability. In addition to providing the most promising innovators with valuable feedback, mentoring, visibility, and strategic introductions, Katerva is working towards being able to provide companies with modularized education and training tools.

Katerva winners tackle global environmental and social problems that have a chance to be solved within the next decade. The winner of the 2015 Katerva Award went to The Ocean Cleanup, a clean technology company that has built a massive sieve to passively collect millions of tonnes of plastic pieces from the Great Pacific garbage patch.

Katerva states that its mission is “To create the world’s first truly open platform for change.”

The name "Katerva" (Kah-tair-vah) comes from the Latin caterva, meaning “crowd”. Katerva's goal is to mobilze and energize the crowd to collaborate on creating our sustainable future.

Katerva began as a set of awards intended to recognize the best ideas in sustainability. But it has evolved to become an acceleration hub.

The awards are broken up into 10 meaningful categories each year and include the following themes:

The Grand Prize winner who gets the Katerva Award, is announced every year at Katerva’s annual gala.

The Ocean Cleanup. Founded by a Dutch teenager, The Ocean Cleanup uses passive wave energy to suck plastics from the sea. More than half of the Great Pacific garbage patch can be cleaned in 10 years, according to feasibility studies. The Ocean Cleanup will release its pilot in June, 2016.

...
Wikipedia