On Monday 18 October 2021, the British High Commissioner to Bangladesh H.E. Robert Chatterton Dickson announced that the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office would provide £300,000 of financial support to Bangladesh-based Solshare, one of the 15 finalists in the inaugural Earthshot Prize competition.
To mark the occasion, the British High Commissioner hosted a celebratory event where guests learned more about Solshare's ground-breaking work to repair our planet, and the finalists received a personal message from HRH Prince William, who congratulated them on their fantastic achievement.
Congratulating Solshare, the High Commissioner said:
"I am pleased to announce that FCDO is about to provide £300,000 to a partnership between Shakti Foundation and Solshare, to help them scale-up their model of using rooftop solar home systems for peer-to-peer energy exchange networks, enabling poor households to both generate electricity from a renewable source and gain an income by selling their surplus energy to the national grid.
"Together with the business support Solshare will receive from Earthshot, we are confident that this will eventually help improve the lives and livelihoods of millions of Bangladeshis."
Launched by Prince William and The Royal Foundation in October 2020, The Earthshot Prize is the most prestigious global environment prize in history. Inspired by President John F. Kennedy's 'Moonshot', which united millions of people around the goal of reaching the moon, the Earthshot Prize aims to discover, spotlight and scale-up the best solutions to the world's greatest environmental challenges. The Earthshot Prize is centred around five 'Earthshots': Protect and Restore Nature; Clean our Air; Revive our Oceans; Build a Waste-free World; and Fix our Climate. Solshare was one of three finalists in the "Fix our Climate" Category.
The winners in each category were announced on 17 October at a star-studded award ceremony in London, which was broadcast live on BBC1. Prince William opened the ceremony, and Sir David Attenborough gave an address in which he shared his optimism that the world would rise to meet the greatest environmental challenges of our time. Hosted by Clara Amfo and Dermot O'Leary, the ceremony also featured unforgettable performances from globally-renowned artists Ed Sheeran, Coldplay, KSI, Yemi Alade, and Shawn Mendes. The winners of The Earthshot Prize were announced by presenters including The Duchess of Cambridge, David Oyelowo, Emma Thompson, Emma Watson, and Mo Salah.
Each year over the course of the coming decade, The Earthshot Prize will award £1 million each to five winners across each Earthshot category, providing at least 50 solutions to the world's greatest environmental problems by 2030.
All 15 of this year's finalists, including Bangladesh-based Solshare, will receive tailored support from The Earthshot Prize Global Alliance, an unrivalled network of philanthropies, NGOs, and private sector businesses around the world who will help scale their solutions.
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