Five Young Innovators Win UN-Backed Prize for Technology-Driven Social Change

Dev Karan co-founded Pondora, an organization that assists villages in monitoring their water quality through technological solutions.

Switzerland:

An Indian teenager who developed mobile tools for water quality monitoring was awarded a United Nations-supported youth activist prize on Thursday, alongside four other young innovators recognized for utilizing technology to create positive societal impact.

Dev Karan, 17, was named one of five winners of the annual Young Activists Summit (YAS) prize for his efforts in restoring India's traditional ponds, which function as multi-purpose water harvesting structures that store water while preventing floods and soil erosion.

As co-founder of Pondora, Karan helps villages monitor water quality using IT-based sensors and mobile applications he developed to detect contamination.

The prize committee described his work as "a replicable model for water ecosystem restoration -- one pond at a time."

"Change doesn't occur when we're sitting in ivory towers," Karan stated in a YAS release. "We have to go down the swamp and we have to bring change ourselves."

Fellow prize winners include 20-year-old Rena Kawasaki from Japan, who at age 14 co-founded an initiative connecting students with politicians through Zoom sessions to enhance youth involvement in politics.

Brazilian activist Salvino Oliveira, 27, also received recognition for his organization PerifaConnection, which amplifies the voices of favela youth and supports first-generation students in accessing university education.

Another honoree, 24-year-old Marina El Khawand from Lebanon, founded Medonations following the devastating 2020 Beirut port explosion that claimed over 220 lives.

"What began with a single social media post to help an elderly woman access life-saving medicine has grown into a global community with collection points in more than 65 countries, delivering free medication and consultations to over 25,000 people," noted the prize committee.

"When people were dying because they couldn't afford oxygen or medicine, we couldn't just watch -- we had to act," El Khawand explained.

Aminata Savane, a 25-year-old from Ivory Coast, completes this year's winners for her work in making the digital world more inclusive and safer for underserved communities.

Savane, who began blogging against COVID-19 misinformation in 2020, has through her organization Centre Maree de Lumiere (Tide of Light Centre) provided digital skills and leadership training to hundreds of women and adolescents in vulnerable communities.

"Digital technology is an opportunity we cannot miss," she emphasized, cautioning that "those who do not adapt risk becoming the illiterate of the 21st century".