GREEN IDEA CONTEST 2010-SUSTAINABLE ENERGY USE

Hanoi, August 28th, 2010- Today, Toyota Motor Vietnam (TMV) in coordination with Ministry of Education and Training, General Department of Environment, Energy Saving Office, Ministry of Industry and Trade, officially launches “Green Idea Contest 2010” with the topic of “Sustainable energy use”. This activity is one part of the Go Green Program. The contest is annually held (since 2009) with the aim at raising public awareness, especially the youth’s in environmental protection and contribution to improving environmental quality in Vietnam.

In recent years, the wasteful energy usage and depleted resource exploitation have become more and more serious. Therefore, sustainable energy using is a hot topical issue that draws a lot of concerns from functional authorities and the community. Sustainable energy use is one of solutions for sustainable development and contributing to positively respond to the climate changes. Therefore, via “Green Idea Contest 2010” with the topic of “Sustainable energy use”, the Organization Board wishes to seek new, practical and highly feasible ideas in economical and effective energy using, recycled and alternative energy using. Besides, with an ambition to create a healthy and practical playground for young environment lovers to contribute their opinions to protecting our surrounding living space, the contest will help to improve knowledge in environmental protection, promote the youth’s creativeness and accordingly to raise public awareness of  environmental protection.

Following the success of “Green Idea Contest 2009”, in the second year, the contest has more new points than in the previous year:

•    Regarding the topic of the contest, the Organization Board encourages candidates to put ideas with following topics: Raising the awareness of sustainable energy use through mass communications, developing and popularizing the effective and economical energy use, applying new energy.

•    Regarding participants, the range of participants’ age is extended. Accordingly, participants include Vietnamese or foreign individuals and groups studying, working and living in Vietnam aged ranging from 15 to 35 years old.

•    Regarding advisory specialists, beside the representatives from the sponsor (TMV) and reputable experts working in fields of researching, teaching or management related to environmental field (on energy and project management), in this contest, there is also a Board of Advisory council including experts specializing in laws, intellectual property in order to evaluate projects if necessary.

•    Regarding duration of the contest, the Organization Board will receive contest papers from August 28, 2010 to 5 pm January 28, 2011.( according to postmark). “Green Idea Contest 2010” will include 2 rounds:
-    The first round: Candidates will make entries on paper and the Judgment Board will select out at most 20 best ideas from competitive papers.
-    The second round: Candidates will make entries through in- person presentation and the Judgment Board will select out 03 best ideas.

•    Regarding assessment criteria, the contest papers must meet 07 following criteria: creativeness and science basis; reality and feasibility; environmental safety; popularization, maintenance, performance and legal base. The contest papers should be in the form of projects in Vietnamese with clear and plain writing.

•    Regarding prize structure, “Green Idea Contest 2010” will include 20 prizes with total value of VND 235,000,000, including:
-    17 encouragement prizes, each values at VND 10,000,000.
-    1 second runner-up values at VND 15,000,000.
-    1 first runner-up values at VND 20,000,000.
-    1 champion values at VND 30,000,000.

Especially, different from other contests, 3 best ideas of “Green Idea Contest 2010”, comprising: the champion, the second and the third prize will be funded with at most VND 250,000,000 for each to put into practice, contributing to the improvement of the environment quality in Vietnam. Besides the cash award, the winners will be given Certificates and Medals by the Organization Committee.

At the launching ceremony of the contest, Ms Dang Phan Thu Huong- Vice President of TMV said: “ with “Green Idea Contest 2010”, we do hope to find out the most feasible ideas on propagandizing activities and effectively using natural resources and fuel, solutions of economical energy use, and accordingly contributing to limiting depression, recovering and balancing eco-system, coping with  climate changes, which is happening complicatedly in our current life”.

Official contest papers should be sent to: Room 201, Floor 2, Sao Bac Building, No.4, Da Tuong, Hanoi and the soft copy should be sent to email: ytuongxanh2@gogreen.com.vn.

TMV FINANCES 3 BEST IDEAS OF THE GREEN IDEA CONTEST 2009 TO IMPLEMENT:

Although “Green Idea Contest 2009” was held for the first time, it has achieved remarkable successes: nearly 800 papers from 1,600 candidates and groups of candidates from all provinces, towns and areas nationwide. It was also strongly supported and high appreciated by the functional authorities and the public.

Especially, with the success of the contest, the three best projects with 250 million VND for each in “Green Idea Contest 2009” have been put into practice. They will be officially deployed within one year (from September 1, 2010 to August 31, 2011).

1. The champion: “Toitietkiem.com- the solution to save energy and protect the environment” by Pham Ngoc Thang, the first year student in FPT University, Hanoi.

His idea is a non-profit social project with an aim at propagandizing the economical and effective energy usage. The project uses the communicative strength of IT, which directly influenced all members in the society, especially the youth who use more energy than others and in the most wasteful way, with an aim to effectively change the awareness of energy saving habit to protect the environment.

Besides providing online information for the purpose of building the system of websites on news, tips, forums, materials on energy saving and environmental protection, building software for electricity saving on computers, Moxy- green music players. Besides, the author of the project aims at communicative activities to raise the awareness of energy use on mass media and in universities and building the advisory model providing solutions to save energy. Toitietkiem.com is deployed with 7 main activities:

- Activity 1: Upgrading and completing the system of Toitietkiem.com including website and 2 software.

- Activity 2: Introducing the product and beginning to install it in 10 major universities in Hanoi.

- Activity 3: Cooperating with computer manufactures to build the brand of green computer installed with Toitietkiem.com

- Activity 4: Organizing “Energy Saving Idea Contest” in coordination with Thieunientienphong magazine.

- Activity 5: Producing comedy video clips on energy saving.

- Activity 6: Taking part in exhibitions on Energy and Environment.

- Activity 7: Deploying the campaign “26 degree- a sub- project in the master Toitietkiem.com.

2. The second prize: “Light concrete made from coconut shells” by Nguyen Tan Khoa in Ho Chi Minh City

With the idea to use waste coconut shells from the production of dried coconut rice to produce construction materials (light concrete). In detail, coconut shells will be processed into aggregates in concrete. The purpose of the project is to handle the source of waste coconut shells, using this amount as the material to produce construction materials and creating jobs for people living in Mekong Delta. The specific products of the project are light concrete slabs used in construction instead of traditional materials. Nguyen Tan Khoa’s initiative has been copyright registered in Vietnam’s National Intellectual Property and been under consideration regarding function, quality standard, safety and the applicability of these concrete slabs into different types of construction sites and infrastructure. The project is divided into three main stages:

- 1st stage: Further researching on the design of concrete slabs made from coconut shells in 0.4m x 0.8m size, in 1500- 1700 kg/m3 proportion.

- 2nd stage: Doing research on the design of production line for coconut-shells concrete slabs to use in Mekong River Delta and modeled houses.

- 3th stage: Finishing the project and making the final report.

3. The third prize: “Raising public awareness of environment and climate change for Vietnam’s fishmen community via religious activities” by Tran Thi Xuan Thuy:

Coming up with the idea, the candidate Xuan Thuy aims at finding a new effective model for testing and replication, in order to improve knowledge and awareness of fishmen on environment and climate change via activities propagandizing about environment and climate change during worships and religious activities organized by local churches. The project’s overall purpose is to enhance the participation of respectable individuals in the community, especially priests and the worshippers’ leaders and building media model to raise the awareness of environmental protection and preventing climate change combining with other communicative activities of churches with an aim to raise public awareness, especially fish men’s of environment and preventing climate change for the community in general and local fishing villages in particular.

For further information, please visit website www.gogreen.com.vn or contact: