The IHS Alumni Impact Award aims to showcase and support worldwide initiatives and projects of IHS alumni that impact the local community. It is a celebration of city changers and inspiring urban initiatives. This year, the award will take place in November 2024 in Cairo, Egypt, during the World Urban Forum.
See this year's submissions below.
1. Demet Gülhan, Turkey
The goal of this initiative is to provide mid-upper-class housing units on free governmental land. The funds obtained from the sale of these units would then be used for urban upgrades to create resilient areas in neighbouring zones.
2. Deyanira Uruburu Gilede, Colombia
This initiative aims to create awareness about the SDGs and sustainable development by sharing case studies of worldwide sustainability processes and projects that can be replicated in other cities. At the same time, the goal is to promote dialogues on knowledge among different stakeholders, such as the community, academia, government, and private companies, to generate alternative ideas for the well-being of the inhabitants and the environment, and ensure that human settlements can be inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable. Lastly, through this initiative, the founders aim to develop alternative policy planning proposals where sustainability is central.
3. Eva Campos, Guatemala
As Guatemala is experiencing an increase and change from rural to urban population due to many employment and education opportunities, internal migration leads to an increasing number of new households. Priority Housing, per the Land Use Plan, promotes dense and compact housing in urban areas, central and urban core, guaranteeing an efficient use of the territory and proximity to the public transportation system and employment. This project aims to coordinate with the multiple actors of the housing sector in the country and the capital to promote the supply of social and affordable housing in the Capital City, materializing the Sustainable Development Goals and the New Urban Agenda.
4. Fahim Uddin, Bangladesh
Garbageman Limited is a technology-driven social enterprise established to provide cost-effective and accessible recycling services for homes and businesses to optimize the recovery of materials. In addition, it aims to develop a responsible and traceable plastic waste supply chain by providing necessary training and skills to informal waste collectors, thus elevating their socio-economic status and promoting workplace health and safety standards for all involved in waste handling and small-scale scrap trading in Dhaka.
5. Frank Kwesi Nansam-Aggrey, Ghana
6. Juliet Chinemelu, Nigeria
This project's aim is to develop a comprehensive guide for using affordable housing in Building Inclusive and Vibrant Future African Cities that will promote cultural diversity, inclusiveness, economic growth and sustainable development. The core is to achieve inclusive and diverse cities in line with the principles of SDG#11. The primary goals include enhancing access to affordable housing for low-income households, promoting cultural diversity, accessibility, opportunity, and equality, especially for the low-income communities, while fostering social cohesion, promoting sustainable urban development, and empowering local stakeholders. This project supports building a city that will cater to the fundamental rights of groups habitually excluded from the policymaking discourse.
7. Klortsoo Okai - Gawuga, Ghana
This project's primary goal is to repurpose used shipping containers into livable spaces, addressing Ghana's housing deficits and environmental concerns. We aim to provide affordable and sustainable housing options for low-income families, individuals facing housing insecurity, and middle-income groups while promoting environmental conservation. The main activities include sourcing, refurbishing, and transforming shipping containers into habitable units with essential amenities such as electricity, plumbing, and insulation. Additionally, the team collaborates with local communities to identify suitable locations to deliver these container homes to those in need. The initiative also benefits the broader society by repurposing unused spaces and reducing the environmental impact of construction.
8. Marini Widowati, Indonesia
The goal is to strengthen children and their community by building inclusive places for early childhood development as a child's right fulfilment. The main activities are raising awareness among key stakeholders on the importance of Child's Right Fulfillment, building quality early childhood development place clusters in four regencies, as well as organising early childhood teachers' capacity building in four regencies.
9. Meron Girma Woldeyohannise, Ethiopia
The project is a COVID-19 emergency response initiative that started in 2021 and was jointly implemented with the Ethiopian Ministry of Peace and different civil society organizations. The project's overall goal is to build the capacity of marginalized youth, particularly women, disabled, and returning refugees, to generate their own income through vegetable and fruit production. To do this, the initiative promoted the adoption of affordable and sustainable shade houses to produce horticultural products using marginal or non-productive lands. The main activities of the projects concern designing and installing simple shade houses at selected pilot sites by participating in the youth, offering agro-vocational skills training such as vertical farming, shade house irrigation systems and marketing strategies, installing irrigation systems, purchasing the needed materials and establishing a cooperative union.
10. Mona Hajibandeh, The Netherlands
The main goal of this urban design project was to transform a traffic junction with inadequate environmental quality into a public plaza. More specifically, it aimed to prioritise upgrading this urban space in the development model of the district named “Imam Hossein Square.” The area of the field was initially completely impractical, with chaotic and defenceless spaces. Therefore, the need to organize and improve Imam Hossein Square as a lively urban space with the desired quality was essential.
11. Pham Thi Anh, Vietnam
The project goals are raising public awareness of the environmental protection of canals and managing flood risks in Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC), assessing people's awareness about flooding and public garbage disposal by households living there, promoting public participation in HCMC canal environmental protection and flood risk management and public transport in Ho Chi Minh City. The main activities were: 32 public awareness meetings for 14 districts with 2,726 participants, the design and presentation of posters/flyers/gifts with environmental protection messages, and 30 public consultations with about 2500 participants on urban public transport projects.
12. Richard Bahumwire, Mozambique
The goal of the project is to increase access to affordable and climate-resilient homes for low-income people in Mozambique. The activities include the construction of resilient houses with water and sanitation, infrastructure development like access roads, drainages for managing floods, and end-user finance management (Introduction of "Rent-to-Buy" and Empowa Pay technology).
13. Solomon Tsehai Adall, Ethiopia
The main goal of this project is to develop a community-owned smart village. On the riverside development, urban agriculture, infrastructure development, continuous personal development for children, greening, cleaning and security.
14. Suman Chowdhury, Bangladesh
The project/initiative has three main goals. The first one is to reduce landslides, the second goal is water sensitization, and the last goal is to preserve forests. The project has taken some initiatives already. An initiative was already undertaken for the first goal to identify the areas most at risk of landslides. Some initiatives have been taken to meet the second objective, including meeting with the beneficiaries to make water accessible. The work is ongoing under the decision. The third initiative is to promote caution against cutting trees and encourage everyone to plant, especially to preserve evergreen forests.
15. Sunday Olusheyi Falaye, Nigeria
The goals and main activities of Ceneco Green Power's "Modular Solar Power Plant for Clean Energy Access for All" initiative centre on advancing sustainable energy access and mitigating environmental impact, are to expand access to clean energy for all communities wherever electricity access is needed, especially those in underserved or remote areas, to promote sustainability by harnessing renewable energy sources like solar power, and to use a modular approach to solar power plant construction, which allows for scalability and flexibility. Additionally, the initiative aims for community engagement, to foster a sense of ownership and support for the project.
16. Tessema Bekele Woldegiorgisn, Ethiopia
The goal of the project is providing affordable housing services for 90 marginalized households in the Debreberhan Urban Community. The objective is to facilitate the construction and provision of affordable housing units for 90 marginalized households in the Debreberhan urban community within the next three years.
17. Truc Thanh Quach, Vietnam
The major goal of the initiative was to celebrate the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Vietnam and the Netherlands in 2023, and it involved planting 1,000 cork trees along the riverside of Tan Loc islet, which belongs to Thot Not District, Can Tho City. This initiative aims to prevent severe erosion at the islets in Hau River, a distributary of the Mekong River in Vietnam. The cork tree is a native plant used in natural medicine, traditional cuisine, and manufacturing, and it is especially suitable for preventing riverbank erosion.
18. Tsehay Worku, United States
To prevail the land lease systems in Ethiopia and to recommend possible intervention.
19. Zamikaya Mgwatyu, South Africa
The Contractor & Developer Academy (CDA) is an enterprise development programme that seeks to improve and enhance the capability of emerging contractors and developers. Incubated within the Development Action Group, CDA works with key sector stakeholders within the built environment- construction, development industry, academia, professionals, etc.- to co-create and test new innovative forms of affordable housing delivery. Its objectives are improving and enhancing emerging contractors' and developers' capacity to deliver affordable housing developments.