London, UK, 2014-Jun-04
Roland Aurich, Siemens UK CEO with prize winners Dominic Jacobson and James Winfield of Crowd Power Plant
How do you crack the age-old problem of making sure all the office lights are switched off at the end of the day, without affecting those who are working late? What about helping small scale electricity generators come together to set a price to feed back into the grid? Or even providing environmentally-friendly charging points, when you are out of the office and desperately need to charge your phone?
These were just some of the problems that entrants sought to solve as part of the Mayor of London’s Low Carbon Entrepreneur prize 2014, the winners of which were announced at the Crystal on 4 June 2014.
Sponsored by Siemens since 2013, the Mayor’s annual competition encourages investment in low carbon innovations whilst nurturing London’s student entrepreneurs of the future.
Open to students and recent graduates in the Greater London area, this year’s prize attracted over 200 entries, entering as individuals or teams.
On 27th May, ten finalists pitched their ideas to a panel of judges including Zac Goldmsith MP, Dragons’ Den’s Deborah Meaden, Innocent Drinks co-founder Richard Reed and Siemens’ UK CEO Roland Aurich and Martin Powell, Head of Urban Development.
A week later the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, joined the award ceremony at the Crystal to announce that the main prize would go to the ‘Crowd Power Plant – a concept for an online electricity marketplace that connects producers and consumers of electricity. The two winners, Imperial College students James Winfield and Dominic Jacobson, received a £15,000 prize to help develop the idea.
In addition runners up Kirsty Kenney and Harold Craston from LSE, took home £5,000 for their Solarbox idea, which aims to transform London’s iconic telephone into free green mobile phone charging points.
The winning entries beat off stiff competition from other finalists whose ideas included:
- Floating urban food farms on barges moored in the Thames
- A campaign for cartoon energy and carbon heroes, to inspire young people to save energy
- Wireless office lighting system
- A social logistics network
As part of our support for the Prize, Siemens also offers a number of internships to selected entrants, giving the participants the opportunity to gain valuable experience to boost their career prospects. Roland Aurich, CEO at Siemens plc said: “The Prize has proved a great way to inspire innovation and get young people involved and active in the debate about reducing carbon emissions. The interns who have already come to Siemens through this competition have made the most of this opportunity and we’ve valued their input.”
Read the full press release on London.gov.uk
Siemens in the UK
Siemens was established in the United Kingdom 170 years ago and now employs 13,760 people in the UK. Last year’s revenues were £3.36 billion*. As the world’s largest engineering company, Siemens provides innovative solutions to help tackle the world’s major challenges across the key sectors of energy, industry, infrastructure & cities and healthcare. Siemens has offices and factories throughout the UK, with its headquarters in Frimley, Surrey. The company’s global headquarters is in Munich, Germany. For more information, visit www.siemens.co.uk
* Data includes intercompany revenue. Data may not be comparable with revenue reported in annual or interim reports.
