British H.C. holds a celebration for 'Earthprize' winner

The British High Commission held a special reception on October 18 to celebrate the winner and the finalist of the inaugural Earthshot prize.

India's Vidyut Mohan was named amongst five winners in a ceremony held in London on October 17. His initiative called Takachar was the winner in the 'clean our air' category and won £1 million as prize money.

Takachar develops smallscale, low-cost portable systems that convert farm residue into high-value bio-products, which in turn enables farmers to increase their income by 30% and reduce smoke emissions by 98%. This further helps improve the air quality. It could potentially cut carbon emissions by a billion tonnes in a year.

14-year-old Vinisha Umashankar made it to the list of 15 finalists and her project will receive tailored support from The Earthshot Prize Global Alliance - an unrivaled network of philanthropies, NGOs, and private sector businesses around the world who will help scale their solutions.

Speaking on the occasion, Deputy British High Commissioner to India, Jan Thompson, said: "I would like to congratulate both Vidyut and Vinisha for their achievement. Earthshot aims to provide the right direction to the innovative solutions offered by young people around the globe in our collective fight against climate change."

"It's also a reminder for leaders around the globe as we approach COP26 that the young generation is looking up to them for concrete action to save and restore our planet."

Launched by Prince William and The Royal Foundation in October 2020, The Earthshot Prize is the most prestigious global environment prize in history, designed to discover, spotlight and scale the best solutions to the world's greatest environmental challenges.