CatComm Wins TechAwards!

Great news! Just yesterday it was announced that Catalytic Communities is one o 25 winners of the 2006 Tech Awards, a prestigious award given out to a small set of organizations each year, each identified as "a leading technology innovator whose contributions have greatly benefited humanity."

The announcement was made by The Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose, CA. Catalytic Communities was chosen among 951 applicants from 58 different countries as a leading technology innovator whose contributions have greatly benefited humanity in the area of equality. The organization, along with 24 other Tech Laureates, will be honored at The Tech Museum Awards on November 15th at The Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose.

It was a double honor because, in addition to receiving a prestigious award like this, we were also honored it was from the Tech Awards due to their specific focus on identifying and supporting individuals and organizations applying technology in innovative and practical ways to solve global humanitarian issues, a specific focus so close to CatComm's heart.

Tech Awards honored "Catalytic Communities of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, for creating a database of community organizations with experience in dealing with problems common to many low-income populations throughout the world."

They summarize our work in the following way:

"This organization uses two complimentary technologies to make it possible for communities to share their own solutions for local problems with other communities facing similar problems. The first technology is an interactive website called Community Solutions Database (www.catcomm.org) that allows visitors to explore a database of searchable, detailed, community generated solutions to common problems across three languages (English, Portuguese and Spanish). The purpose of this database is precisely to share the knowledge of solutions that have worked for local community organizations with a worldwide audience. There were 126 project cases available with another 100+ awaiting completion before posting on the website. There were about 22,000 visitors to the website each month from 65 different countries. The other aspect of this project is a physical center in Rio de Janeiro that acts as a place for local and regional organizations in Brazil to meet and discuss among themselves as well as have access to the database. The basic idea of the project is for community leaders and organizations to document their experiences and successes and to share this experience with others who face similar situations. With a planned expansion of more languages for the Community Solutions Database, more countries could benefit from these experiences."

“The Tech Museum Awards are an incredibly important way to call attention to some of the most meaningful innovations in science and technology in the world, and to the often unsung heroes behind them,” said Peter Friess, President of The Tech. “The Laureates who we honor serve as great role models to future generations of inventors and engineers, and their work reminds us that innovation can be applied in profound ways to benefit humanity and the world.”
James Koch, executive director of the Global Social Benefit Incubator at Santa Clara University’s Center for Science, Technology and Society commented, “Each year’s award submissions give us a glimpse at global trends and issues that we might not have had insight into otherwise.” Koch further noted that the prevalence of East/West alliances between Europe, North America, and Asia have been replaced with North/South alliances linking developed countries of the Northern Hemisphere and developing nations of the Southern Hemisphere.

“Catalytic Communities represents the ‘best of the best’ technologists whose innovations benefit humanity, and we are thrilled to welcome them into our community of Tech Laureates,” said Amanda Reilly from The Tech Museum of Innovation. “We aim to raise public awareness on how technology can significantly alleviate many of the critical issues facing our planet and champion those innovators who are leveraging technology to provide resolution to both local and global problems.”

To read the press release The Tech sent out click here.
To read CatComm's release click here.

We'd like to thank all our supporters over the years for believing in us and investing in our vision to the point we've reached now, where recognition is now coming from around the world!