27 June 2008
Tiruchirappalli Regional Engineering College - Science & Technology Entrepreneurs Park (TREC-STEP) from India has been selected as a finalist among 100 candidates for the DM2008 awards. 1,768 proposals were submitted for this year's competition. TREC-STEP has been a member of infoDev's Global Network of Business Incubators since 2004.
TREC-STEP DM2008 project proposal.pdf
For further information about TREC-STEP's project proposal, please see the attachment.
The Development Marketplace is a grant program that that identifies and funds innovative, early-stage projects with high potential for development impact at the local level. Using DM funding as a launching pad, projects often go on to scale up or replicate elsewhere, winning prestigious awards within the sphere of social entrepreneurship. Since 1998, the Development Marketplace has awarded more than $46 million in grants to over 1,000 initiatives.
This year’s global competition, organized in coordination with the Agricultural and Rural Development (ARD) department of the World Bank and supported by the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and other partners, focuses on sustainable agriculture. It has drawn 1,768 proposals from around the world addressing three issues: linking small-scale farmers to markets, improving land access and tenure for the poor, and addressing the challenges of climate change and biodiversity.
At the marketplace event, the finalists will be given the opportunity to present and explain their proposals to a top level jury. About one third of the contestants will receive grants of up to USD 200,000 to further develop their innovative ideas.
The projects originated with a range of innovators, including civil society groups, social entrepreneurs, academia and businesses all over the world. The greatest majority of the entries come from sub-Saharan Africa (41 percent), followed by Latin America and the Caribbean (21 percent), East Asia and the Pacific (19 percent), South Asia (14 percent), Eastern Europe and Central Asia (3 percent) and the Middle East and North Africa (2 percent).