Lemelson-MIT Prize for Global Innovation Awarded to Environmental Scientist

The Lemelson-MIT Program, a partnership between the Lemelson Foundation and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has announced Ashok Gadgil as the winner of the 2012 Lemelson-MIT Award for Global Innovation.

Gadgil, professor of safe water and sanitation at the University of California, Berkeley and director of the Environmental Energy Technologies Division at Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory, will receive $100,000 in recognition of his technological innovations to improve the lives of impoverished people in the developing world. A physicist by training, Gadgil has invented and innovated safe drinking water solutions such as a utility-sponsored energy-efficiency program and fuel-efficient stoves for displaced people in Africa.

"Ashok Gadgil's long record of inventive solutions to problems in the developing world is an example of how passion coupled with creative problem solving can have a colossal impact," said Lemelson-MIT Program director Joshua Schuler. "Dr. Gadgil truly encompasses what it means to be a global innovator."

“Inventor Honored for Bridging Innovation and Humanitarianism to Help Millions Globally Live Safer Lives.” Lemelson-MIT Program Press Release 5/02/12.

Primary Subject: Philanthropy and Voluntarism
Secondary Subject(s): International Affairs/Development, Science/Technology
Location(s): Cambridge, Massachusetts, Oregon, Portland

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