Five tech innovators share $250,000 award at awards ceremony

Friday, November 8th 2002, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) _ A group that provides inexpensive and clean lighting to the poor around the world was among five innovators honored for applying technology to benefit humanity.

The Alberta, Canada-based Light Up The World Foundation will split a $250,000 cash prize with the other four winners of the second annual Tech Museum Awards ceremony held Thursday night.

The awards, which are presented by the San Jose-based Tech Museum of Innovation and chip-equipment maker Applied Materials Inc., were established to encourage individuals, organizations and companies to implement technology to address global challenges.

``The heartwarming and inspiring stories of these remarkable people and organizations remind us of the potential goodness of technology,'' said Tech Museum chief executive Peter Giles.

The Light Up The World Foundation uses White Light Emitting Diodes to generate comfortable reading light that consumes only one-tenth of a watt of electricity and provides light for 10 years.

So far, the group has lit up more than 500 homes in Nepal, 100 homes in India and 50 homes in Sri Lanka for $17,350.

Organizers estimate a third of the world's population relies on fuel-based lighting after nightfall. Wood fires and kerosene lamps not only provide poor lighting but also generate toxic fumes.

Diodes can be powered by solar panels, wind turbines and pedal generators. Thirty minutes of pedaling produces enough power for up to 20 hours of diode light.

Other winners include:

_ The International SeaKeepers Society for equipping cruise ships, luxury yachts and other vessels with sensors to study the oceans and atmosphere. Data collected are transferred to scientists around the world by the Key Biscayne, Fla.-based group.

_ Bunker Roy of The Barefoot College in Rajasthan, India, for teaching practical technology skills, from solar power to rainwater harvesting systems, to rural poor.

_ ApproTEC, based in San Francisco and Kenya, for developing an efficient, low-cost irrigation pump that allows rural farmers in Africa to increase production capacity.

_ Andreas Pluckthun of the University of Zurich in Switzerland for pioneering technology to create synthetic, or recombinant, antibodies that might someday be used to proactively treat diseases.

Judges considered 460 nominations from 59 countries for this year's awards _ a 50 percent increase from last year.