Madrid, Spain, 18 September 2013

Welcome remarks

Good afternoon and welcome to this awards ceremony for the Third ITU Green ICT Application Challenge that we have run together with Telefónica, who have generously sponsored today’s prize of $ 5,000 to our deserved winner today.

The intention of our Application challenges is to encouraging innovation in the use of ICTs to mitigate environmental challenges.

The winner of the first challenge, at the first Green standards Week in Rome in 2011, was a young woman from Venezuela, Lis Lugo with an app for mobile phones which would guide users to the nearest recycling centre and had the facility to feedback suggestions for improvement to the local authority.

Last years winner was a young man from Cyprus, Andreas Kamilaris with a Facebook app that would allow people to compare their electricity footprint with their friends and neighbours. The application helps people become aware of their electricity consumption, manage it more rationally, and compete with their friends to have the lowest consumption.

This spirit of social entrepreneurship is exactly what we wanted to encourage and it is in this spirit that I believe this year’s winner has developed his winning submission.

I will leave it to him to explain his idea, which adds an element of fun to the problem of waste disposal in cities.I believe we have uncovered a true talent who has applied great skill to show an innovative approach.

So let me congratulate our winner Andrey Sryvkov, from Belarus who has developed Greenyplay, and invite him to present his submission.