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The Orange Foundation has named the winners of the Solidarity FabLabs Challenge, with teams from Egypt and Tunisia among the three prize winners securing EUR15,000 (US$16,982) each.

Launched in October, the “I make 4 my city” Challenge asked teams from Orange’s 32 Solidarity FabLab hubs to carry out digital creation projects, building a solution, an application or a 3D object reinventing daily life in the “city of the future”.

The challenge is aimed at young people aged 12 to 25 who have dropped out of school with no qualifications, and are members of Solidarity FabLab spaces.

The Jury’s Prize went to the team from Egypt’s FabLab, which focused on their country’s challenges regarding access to quality education.  The team produced a simple open source kit to learn how to make a robot.

The Web Users’ Prize, as chosen by the public in an online vote, went to the Tunisian team, which produced a connected device to measure the effects of pollution in the city of Tunis, and visualize them using online and mobile applications.

A third prize was split between two French teams – one having built a robot which collects plastic waste from rivers; the other having created a digital checkers board for the blind and partially-sighted.

Each of the teams secured EUR15,000 (US$16,982) prize money for their FabLab.

Orange also commended the other 13 projects submitted for the competition, saying all demonstrate the opportunities posed when young people mix their creativity with technology innovation.

“While most of the projects are currently in their prototype phase, some of them may become essential items in the cities of tomorrow. It goes to show that, using digital technologies and new collaborative learning models, all young people can become productive, confident, and work towards their choice of future career,” the Orange Foundation said.

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