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MONDIALOGO ENGINEERING AWARD

Largest worldwide contest for student engineers calls for participants

· Contest of Daimler and UNESCO promotes ideas for fight against poverty and climate change
· €300,000 in prize money as seed funding for project proposals
· Registration phase runs until31 October 2008

Stuttgart/Paris – Daimler and UNESCO invite student engineers from universities around the world to apply for the largest international engineering competition - the Mondialogo Engineering Award.Registration is open until 31 October2008 atwww.mondialogo.org. The award carries prize money totalling € 300,000. It is intended that these awards be used as seed funding to help develop and initiate the proposed projects.

In the Mondialogo Engineering Award, student engineers from developing and developed countries are challenged to form International Project Teams to develop ideas and design project proposals for sustainable solutions to problems in developing countries.The focus is on the design of innovative technologies to reduce poverty, promote sustainable development and address other United Nations Millennium Development Goals, in such fields as environmental protection, energy, water supply and sanitation, waste management, use of natural resources, medical care, nutrition, housing, hygiene, disaster protection, mobility, communication andclimate change - a key concern of the Mondialogo Engineering Award.

International Project Teams eligible to apply for the Mondialogo Engineering Award should consist of two student groups from two higher education establishments, with one group from a developing country and the other from a developed country.The Mondialogo Internet Portalwww.mondialogo.orgacts as a contact centre for groups to meet each other, and will later function as a virtual office for inter-group communications.Teams will have time until April 2009 to develop and design their project proposals.An international jury will then assess the entries and decide on the awarding,which willbe part of a festive ceremony in later 2009. Key factors in the assessment are sustainability, technical quality, feasibility of the project proposals and the quality of the intercultural cooperation between the teams. Through the competition Daimler and UNESCO aim to promote international cooperation, intercultural dialogue and the exchange of knowledge among student engineers, universities and higher education establishments.

The Mondialogo Engineering Award is part of the Mondialogo project initiated and launched by Daimler and UNESCO in 2003. The Mondialogo Initiative also consists of the Mondialogo School Contest and the multilingual Mondialogo Internet Portal. The aim of the Mondialogo project is to encourage cooperation and dialogue between people from different countries and cultures, working together across continents on a joint project activity.This cooperation is intended to develop understanding, tolerance and friendship between people with different cultural, religious and linguistic backgrounds.

Contact:

Daimler AG UNESCO
Susann Rohr Sue Williams
Phone: + 49 (0)711/17-40622 Phone:+33 (0)1 45 68 17 06
Fax: + 49 (0)711/17-24847 Fax: +33 (0)1 45 68 56 59
susann.rohr@daimler.com s.williams@unesco.org

Mondialogo
André Paris
Phone:+49 (0)69/74 34 88 309
Fax: +49 (0)69/74 34 88 809
presse@mondialogo.org