CAFU In Collaboration With GEMS World Academy – Dubai Reveals ‘CAFU Creates’ UN SDG Challenge Winners

The winning project of the very first ‘CAFU Creates’ competition, in which over 300 students participated,was recently revealed at the grand final event held at Dubai Future Foundation.

The competition was launched by CAFU, the pioneering leader in fuel delivery and vehicle services, in collaboration with partners GEMS World Academy – Dubai (GWA), Mastercard, Microsoft, and Dubai Future Foundation. The competition is aimed at providing support to young bright minds and offering a platform for them to pitch their innovative, feasible, and exciting ideas aligning with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs).

Presenting their idea, titled ‘FloodCopter’,a drone designed to support action taken by first repsonders in remote areas affected by flooding brought about by climate change, complete with imaging data processed via AI to identify safe areas, the ‘CAFU Creates- SDG’First Place winners consist of exceptionally talented Grade 10 students, Sofia FaghihyNejad, Tudor Balaj, Seongjoon Yang, Jihyum Yang, and Cormac Hynes.

Second Place was won by another creative group of Grade 10 GWA students who presented their idea of ‘Carbon Wallet’,an activity tracker and reward scheme that evaluates carbon saved through environmentally friendly changes to the users’ lifestyle. The team consisted of Arnav Kedia, Lukas Baumgartner, VinnKuijpers, Viktor Mirazov-Jensen, and SumedhSabherwal. Third place, was awarded to a group of Grade 7 students, including Amelia Fay Allan, James Tran, Michael Schooley, Mishti Sharma, Mythri Nair, with their fantastic project, ‘Plastic Paints,’that creates an environmentally friendly use for recycled plastics.

Strengthening CAFU’s sustainability agenda and as part of its mission to promote youth engagement in community leadership, CAFU initiated this challenge together with its corporate partners to encourage GWA students to think about careers focused on sustainable business models to reduce and respond to climate change.

Nabra Al Busaidi, Sustainability and Community Manager of CAFU, congratulated the winners and proudly stated: “With sustainability and climate action high on the UAE agenda, CAFU is honoured to join hands with Gems World Academy and our corporate partners, Microsoft, Mastercard, and Dubai Future Foundation, to support and encourage the next generation of leaders. At CAFU, we strive to make lives better for our customers and residents by taking real steps forward in our sustainability plan to reduce the impact on our environment and the world we live in. Therefore, we are so excited to have provided a meaningful platform like ‘CAFU Creates’ for young people to be innovative and imaginative in tackling Climate change.”

Helen Al Uzaizi, Director of Entrepreneurship at GWA, also congratulated the winners and said: “We are happy to see enormous support from our corporate partners towards the future generation of leadership. Our purpose was to mobilise with organisations with social responsibility at the core of their ethos. Every idea submitted was a winning entry; however, we had to carefully choose a winner that met the competition criteria and showcased the best innovative solution in addressing the climate action needs.”

Launched as part of GWA’s ‘Genius Week,’ CAFU Creates involved 300 students from GWA, who actively pitched their ideas to an exclusive group of technology and sustainability experts. The esteemed judging panel included Jeff Baker, Chief Experience Officer at CAFU; Robert Croci, Managing Director of Microsoft Start-ups for MENA, Pakistan, and Turkey; and Prakriti Singh, Senior Vice President of Acceptance Solutions and Digital Infrastructure at Mastercard.

Connected by the sense of shared purpose of doing well by doing good to the communities, envisioning a tech-enabled world–Microsoft and Mastercard have stepped forward to provide mentorship and an opportunity to bring the winning students’ idea to life by presenting the award-winning idea themed,‘FloodCopter,’ by the winning team of Grade 10 students at Mastercard’s Global Sustainability Innovation Lab in Stockholm.

Speaking at the final round, Managing Director of Microsoft Start-ups for MENA, Pakistan, and Turkey, Robert Croci, said: “Microsoft for Startups Middle East and Africa is proud to support the very first ‘CAFU Creates’ competition as we believe this initiative is aligned with our mission to support Youth across our region to acquire the skills needed in the 21^st century and adopt an entrepreneurial mindset. We are excited to support the winner “Floodcopter” with a tech session with a senior cloud solution architect and 2 hours of mentorship, also promoting their story across different channels. We look forward to further collaboration with CAFU and GEMS World Academy around more challenges that catalyze youth in our region.”

Senior Vice President of Acceptance Solutions and Digital Infrastructure at Mastercard, Prakriti Singh, said: “Mastercard is delighted to join hands with CAFU, GEMS, the Dubai Future Foundation, and Microsoft and we come together for a shared goal of creating a better future through the power of technology. It was an honour to be on the panel and a delight witnessing the innovative solutions and commitment the participants brought to life. I look forward to continuing this journey as we help mentor the winning team.”

The Genius Week at GWA hosts several interesting and exciting activities for students, fostering team building and sustainability habits within an immersive and experiential learning experience.Jointly with GWA, CAFU is excited to host the CAFU Creates competition annually anduse the collective power of innovation through partnerships to serve the wider communities and make lives better. The next CAFU Creates will be launched in March 2023.

For more information on CAFU Community programmes, please log on to https://www.cafu.com/cafu-community.