During the sixth edition of TEDxAmsterdam, an award was again given this year for the best submitted idea. From the many submissions, the jury made a selection of three nominees. The award ceremony was held at the De La Mar Theater in Amsterdam, where the winner was announced. We had the chance to be there and briefly speak with the winner and nominees.

Jasper de Valk, staff member of TEDxAmsterdam: 'Our mission [with TEDx] is to spread ideas. A place where someone can share their vision or idea with the world in 18 minutes.' But ideas are not the only thing presented at TEDx. A second component has been added to TEDxAmsterdam. It concerns ambitious projects aimed at improving ideas, and one of the components is the award ceremony: the TEDxAward. Jasper: 'More than 200 submissions participated for a chance to win the TEDxAward. We spent a full weekend selecting the winner and nominees. With a team of different backgrounds and various ideas, based on research and in collaboration with experts. Together with this team, we compiled a top 30. The top 30 received a workshop with TEDx partners, where they had to pitch their idea and demonstrate their product, with the help of our TEDx partners and speaker coaches.' From this process, the three nominees emerged:

Bucket Line - Sergio van Santvoort Vorst
'Matching people who are in need of help (due to e.g. severe illness) with people in their neighborhood who are willing to help.'

Plastic Madonna - Peter Smith
'When litter meets art; faith in humanity gets restored.'

Candy becomes plastic - Gerben Stouten
'How to solve the plastic waste issue in the world? Using bacteria that eat waste and produce bio plastic.'

Winner

The winner of the TEDxAward 2014 is Candy to plastic. A proud Gerben Stouten stands on stage with the other nominees. 'Of course, I am happy that I won, but it is certainly worth mentioning that these gentlemen have a good idea,' he says, pointing to his competitors. 'Their ideas are closer to what anyone can do; my idea is more on the business-oriented side.' He gives an example of the well-known Mars bars and the accompanying waste materials. With his solution, new material can be extracted from the residual waste using bacteria. 'We were looking for a method to extract new material from waste, and we found that with the help of biotechnology.' The idea did not just come out of nowhere and actually works. For the past ten years, Gerben's team has been working to find such solutions. 'We have succeeded in using biotechnology to extract new material from waste. If these waste materials were released into nature, nature would break them down eventually, it just takes longer. Now, we can not only speed up the process, but we also obtain a usable product: plastic.' The beauty of this story? The waste materials generated during the production of Mars bars are also the source for wrapping that same bar.

Bucket Line

Sergio van Santvoort Vorst is one of the nominees for the TEDxAward with his idea 'Bucket Line.' Sergio's concept took shape through his personal experiences. Due to health problems of his wife, Sergio was forced to take care of her and technically became a caregiver. 'But there is a stigma attached to 'caregiving',' Sergio explains. 'I want to make people more aware that they can ask for help; that's what it's about. That you can let another person help you by daring to ask for it. When someone asks for help themselves, it's different than when someone points to another and says: "yes, that person could help you."' Yet, more people work as caregivers than you might think. Sergio mentions that one in seven provides care. 'But did you know that 50 percent of them decide to stop working and focus entirely on caregiving? The stigma that caregiving carries needs to change. It's about caring and providing care, but it starts with being able and willing to ask for help.' It is clear that Sergio has a unique challenge to make everyone more open to caring and providing care, 'But for that, people need to be open and dare to ask for help. One and a half million people have the same problem; they need help but dare not ask for it, and that's where Bucket Line will help.'

Plastic Madonna

Peter Smith has set a special goal with his project 'Plastic Madonna': 'I want to make people more aware of the amount of plastic we use and dump as litter.' Peter explains. He has created a piece of art, entirely made up of plastic bottles that have wandered around as street litter. 'The goal is to get as much exposure as possible and make people aware that they can help. It starts with a bottle on the street. Pick it up, throw it away. If a quarter of the Dutch population each picked up a bottle from the street, there would be nothing left to throw away.' That is, of course, idealistic, but the idea is grand. Peter Smith hopes that with a bit more exposure, the whole concept gains traction, instead of just plastic. 'What I notice is that people who have done this once are much more open to it. I know it is unrealistic to ask everyone to pick up and throw away all the litter. No, start with a plastic bottle you see lying around, then the rest will follow naturally.' The goal of Peter's project is to make everyone more aware of everything around us, and in a sense, he has already done that during TEDxAmsterdam, where he secured quite a bit of attention with his nomination.