PWX Named A 2010 Tech Awards Laureate By The Tech Museum

The Peer Water Exchange is One of 15 Innovations From Around the World Recognized for Applying Technology to Benefit Humanity

San Jose, California Sept. 21, 2010

Blue Planet Network's Peer Water Exchange was today named to The Tech Awards Laureates 2010, one of 15 global innovators recognized each year for applying technology to benefit humanity and spark global change. The Tech Awards, a signature program of The Tech Museum, and presented by Applied Materials, Inc., selected this invention from among hundreds of nominations representing more than 50 countries.

Solving the water and sanitation crises that impact over 2.6B people will require small-scale, grassroots projects using appropriate technology that can be managed by the community. The community needs to own the project and change behavior appropriately to make the project succeed. With a decade of experience in water and sanitation, BPN's Rajesh Shah pioneered the model of PWX to solve this problem of managing the tens of thousands of projects needed. PWX is a combination of process, people, and technology that uses peer review, collaboration, participatory decision-making, crowdsourcing, and 100% transparency to solicit, fund, manage, and long-term monitor projects. Over six years, the model has proven to work and now manages over $26MM of project data in 23 countries. In addition, PWX AnalytiX -- the first set of business intelligence tools for the water sector -- was launched in September.

The Tech Awards: Technology Benefiting Humanity is one of the premier annual humanitarian awards programs in the world, recognizing technical solutions that benefit humanity and address the most critical issues facing our planet and its people. The awards program honors 15 scientists and innovators annually alongside the recipient of the Global Humanitarian Award. This year’s Global Humanitarian Award will go to Queen Rania Al Abdullah of Jordan.

Laureates are selected by a prestigious panel of international judges organized by the Center for Science, Technology, and Society at Santa Clara University, and made up of Santa Clara University faculty as well as leaders from educational and research institutions, industry and the public sector around the world.

“The Tech Awards is an incredible honor, recognizing individuals and organizations whose ideas and execution of those ideas are changing the world,” said Rajesh Shah, inventor of PWX. “We are proud to be among those recognized for their contributions, and will continue to innovate to improve the overall well being of billions of people worldwide.”

“The global challenges of the day have become increasingly strident, more deeply rooted,” said Peter Friess, president of The Tech Museum. “Still, there is hope. These incredibly impressive Laureates have all proven to be equal to, or better than, the challenge to make the world a better place. By celebrating their accomplishments today, we are encouraging future innovators to work toward solutions to make the world healthier, safer and more sustainable.”

Established in 2000, The Tech Awards recognizes 15 Laureates in five universal categories: education, equality, environment, economic development and health. These Laureates have developed new technological solutions or innovative ways to use existing technologies to significantly improve the lives of people around the world. One Laureate in each category will receive a $50,000 cash prize during the annual Awards Gala in Santa Clara, California on November 6.

This year, the Laureates represent the truly global vision of the program, spanning countries such as Brazil, Bangladesh, the Philippines and the Bay Area. Their work impacts people in many more countries worldwide.

About The Tech Awards

The Tech Awards collaborates with humanitarian, educational, and business partners through global outreach efforts, giving people around the world the opportunity to benefit from the successful technologies recognized through The Tech Awards. The selected Laureates’ projects address multiple humanitarian efforts including redefining the philanthropic model to achieve greater impact in the water sector, developing alternate ways to generate electricity, irrigate land, creating free educational tools, offering affordable solutions for learning English, and helping indigenous people in the Amazon eliminate deforestation on their territory.

Key sponsors supporting The Tech Awards include Applied Materials, Inc., Intel Corporation, Nokia, Microsoft, The Swanson Foundation, BD Biosciences, Polycom, Genentech, Wells Fargo, SAP, eBay, KPMG, Accenture, The Quattrone Foundation, Google, NBC11, Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide, The Fairmont San Jose, Montgomery Hotel, Marriott San Jose and American Airlines. Key partners include Santa Clara University’s Center for Science, Technology, and Society, World Federation of United Nations Associations, United Nations Development Programme, World Bank Institute, Catholic Relief Services, The CORE Group, National Center for Technology Innovation and Opportunity International.

For more information about The Tech Awards, visit www.techawards.org. Nominations for 2011 will be accepted beginning October 1.

About The Tech Museum of Innovation

The Tech Museum is a hands-on technology and science museum for people of all ages and backgrounds. Located in San Jose, California – the Capital of Silicon Valley – its mission, as a public-benefit corporation, is to inspire the innovator in everyone. Through hands-on exhibits, educational programs, The Tech Challenge team competition for youth, and the internationally recognized The Tech Awards, presented by Applied Materials, Inc., The Tech Museum honors the past, celebrates the present, and encourages the development of innovative ideas for a more promising future. For more information about The Tech Museum, visit www.thetech.org.

About Blue Planet Network

Blue Planet Network is a San-Francisco based 501(c)3 non-profit enabling safe drinking water projects for the billion people around the world in need. Founded in 2002 by Jin Zidell, the organization conducted the Blue Planet Run 2007 – the first-ever around-the-world relay race to raise funds and awareness for water projects, and the largest single event ever devoted to safe drinking water. Blue Planet Network's mission is to unlock the global capacity and creativity of individuals, philanthropies, businesses and expert water organizations to solve the global safe drinking water crisis. To learn more about Blue Planet Network or to make a donation, please visit www.blueplanetnetwork.org.

About Peer Water Exchange

The Peer Water Exchange, a Bangalore based non-profit, is a pioneering effort to enforce collaboration marshaling resources cost-effectively to make decisions efficiently and transparently. A peer-run participatory decision-making system, PWX has proven that crowdsourcing the expertise in the field is extremely valuable and can be used within a robust network to scale up the management of thousands of diverse, customized grassroots water and sanitation projects. In addition, PWX is a cost-effective approach to monitor and measure the long-term impact of small projects to ensure that we are truly making a dent in the global water crisis.

For further information, go to the PWX website or email PWX.