Undine Award - naming the winners on World Water Day
Celle, 22.3.2022
The Josef Wund Foundation presents the Undine Award for the first time and announces the winners today on World Water Day: The jury has unanimously chosen our StartUp AWATREE with our future vision for urban trees in the habitat category.
"With the Undine Award, we honour innovations, impulses and ideas on water, the elixir of life, in its entire spectrum," says Christoph Palm, the Managing Director of the Josef Wund Foundation. "In the very first year, we received many, high-quality recommendations. The applications submitted by selected experts are consistently convincing with creative, sustainable and socially relevant answers to the water issues of our time. The jury paid particular attention to impact and connection with people."
Winner in the Habitat category (20,000 euros)
Awatree GmbH receives the Undine Award 2022 in the category Habitat for
the corporate goal "We save city trees". The start-up company has been developing digital and sustainable solutions for watering urban trees since 2021. Urban furniture, in which larger quantities of rainwater, purified surface water or water from bodies of water are stored, serve as decentralised and remotely controllable water reservoirs. The smart system for on-demand irrigation uses data sources such as the tree cadastre, regional precipitation amounts, weather forecasts and soil readings. These values and also the fill level can be called up at any time via the myAWATREE portal. The growing, interdisciplinary team is currently expanding the Analytics and Citizen Participation business areas and would like to supply more city trees in Germany with the resource water in a clever and sustainable way.
Congratulations to the two other award winners
We would also like to take this opportunity to congratulate the winners in the Source of Life category, the research team Prof. Dr. Andrea Schäfer and Prof. Dr. Bryce Richards, for the long-distance project "Drinking Water Production with Sun and Membrane" and the winners in the Joy of Life category, the project team Aqua-Agents for the cooperative educational programme for primary school children!
Background to the Undine Award
Water is the basis of all life, whether in the form of ice, liquid or gas, it is a substance that constantly surrounds us as humans and is a highly valuable commodity on our planet. There is therefore a global social obligation to use this life resource for humans and the environment, flora and fauna, carefully, wisely and fairly. Access to clean drinking water and sanitary facilities has been a UN human right since 2010. At the same time, water faces enormous threats all over the world, from severe pollution to extreme scarcity. The climate crisis will also have an increased impact on the condition and availability of water.
With the Undine Award, the Josef Wund Foundation wants to make a small but sustainable contribution to the conservation and careful use of the vital element of water. The Undine Award honours projects and initiatives on the topic of water in its entire spectrum. The focus is on "water for people". It can be about better access to clean drinking water or new methods of water conservation, but also about water management projects, water as a climate protection factor, health effects or the positive aspects of water in art and culture.
Applications for the Undine Award 2022 could only be submitted on the recommendation of national and international experts in the field of water. The award winners were selected by an independent jury. The three award winners will be announced on today's World Water Day, 22.03.2022, and will receive their prizes at a festive event in the summer of 2022.
Undine Award is a registered European trademark of the Josef Wund Foundation. The Undine Award is named after the mythological water nymph of the same name. According to Paracelsus, she is an elemental being who embodies the element of water. In art, especially contemporary art, Undine is portrayed as a self-confident, independent woman who wants to determine her own destiny, see the film "Undine" by Christian Petzold from 2020. "She no longer wants to be a phantasm, i.e. an object, but to finally become a subject." Quote Wenke Husmann: "Undine": In "Die Zeit" from 24.02.2020.