Seif Awards: Winners from Switzerland and Nigeria

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Stefan Kyora

09.10.2015

Ässbar, Prystem, Mitschaffe and Wecyclers are the winners of the seif Awards 2015. The seif Jury Special Mention was awarded to Bibak.

In the fifth year since its creation, the seif Awards for Social Entrepreneurship have become the biggest Swiss business plan competition in the area of Social Entrepreuneurship. The Awards go to Swiss and international projects presenting an innovative business model which responds to social challenges. A reputable jury, combined of experts from start-up and science backgrounds, appoints the awardees. This year, the awardees receive a prize money of CHF 10’000 each in different categories. 

The winners of the fifth edition are:

Ässbar, Zürich: Seif Award for Entrepreneurial Innovation
Food waste is a serious problem. A third of all food that is grown, harvested and produced is filling landfills rather than feeding people. This is where Ässbar comes in. In collaboration with several bakeries in Zurich, Bern and Winterthur Ässbar sells selling yesterday’s cakes, bread, rolls, tarts, pastries, salads and sandwiches in special outlets at a heavily discounted price. With the purchase of the pastry, the customers support the fight against food waste and save money at the same time.

Prystem, Lausanne: Seif Awards for Future Trends
PRYSTEM is a novel medical X-ray technology specifically designed for the context of resource-poor settings, targeting two-thirds of humanity that have still not access to radiology services. Combined to an innovative business model which includes the maintenance costs in the one-off price, this extremely robust and affordable digital radiography solution can reach large yet untapped markets, achieving both large social impact and profitability. It is planned to deploy 6,000 X-ray systems within 10 years from now, allowing to diagnose more than 50 million patients.

Mitschaffe.ch, Schaffhausen: seif Award for Integration & Prevention 2015
Mitschaffe.ch was created in order to integrate persons with a disability into the daily working life. While the core activity of mitschaffe.ch is job placement, there are also two other aspects to the programme. The first aspect is the assistance of persons with a disability during their job search. During the job search, persons with a disability have the opportunity to choose freely between different jobs that provide ordinary employment contracts. The second aspect is the training and education of employers on ways in which they can effectively employ persons with disabilities. Mitschaffe.ch is run without public funding.

Wecyclers, Nigeria: Seif Award for Social Entrepreneurship
Uncollected trash is a huge problem in the developing world. By estimates only 10% of solid waste in Africa is collected, resulting in pollution, disease and environmental crisis, but most of this materials are recyclable. Wecyclers uses low-cost cargo bikes to create a sustainable solution to this waste crisis. They offer convenient household recycling services and power social change by allowing people in low-income communities to capture value from their waste. Since August 2012, Wecyclers collected over 900+ metric tons of recyclable materials and created over 80 jobs.

Special Mention
The jury also decided to honour an additional social entrepreneur that had deeply impressed and moved them. So for the first time ever, the seif Jury Special Mention is awarded to Selene Biffi, the founder of Bibak. Bibak partners with communities in post-conflict areas to move from landmines to land security by leveraging affordable, recyclable technology for landmine detection.

A video with all ten finalists can be found in our video section.

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