Héctor, Emily and Michiel win the first Nudge Global Impact Awards!

Héctor, Emily and Michiel win the first Nudge Global Impact Awards!

Young impact leaders win Nudge Global Impact Award in the Peace Palace, The Hague

Nudge founder Jan van Betten: “Focusing even more on impact , we aim to change the lives of 1 billion people.”

Amsterdam, the Netherlands, 31 October 2017 – Last Friday at the Nudge Summit, the winners of the Nudge Global Impact Award 2017 have been announced. Emily Kennedy (Youth in Agriculture Initiative, Uganda), Héctor García Montemayor (Heineken, Mexico) and Michiel de Koning (Heroes & Friends, the Netherlands) won this global recognition for their achievements in creating the biggest impact on people’s lives and livelihood. The winners are alumni of the Nudge Global Impact Challenge, a yearly development programme in leadership, sustainability and impact. The VU University of Amsterdam, strategic partner of the Challenge, is responsible for measuring and monitoring the impact created by the Award nominees. At the Summit, a jury consisting of Teresa Fogelberg (Global Reporting Initiative), Philipp Pattberg (VU University Amsterdam), Joyeeta Gupta (University of Amsterdam) and Ralien Bekkers (NDC partnership, Washington) chose the three winners from six finalists.

From left to right: Héctor García Montemayor (Heineken, Mexico), Michiel de Koning (Heroes & Friends, the Netherlands) and Emily Kennedy (Youth in Agriculture Initiative, Uganda)
Photo by Bibi Veth

Nudge founder Jan van Betten: “The Nudge Global Impact Award is a great boost and recognition for our participants to realise their plans and create the impact they envision. With our Nudge projects, we aim to change the lives of a billion people, together with our partners, supporters, and of course the young women and men who are future leaders in sustainability. The Nudge Global Impact Challenge will help them make the change for a better world.”

This year’s Nudge Global Impact Challenge winners are Erin Groot-Hermsen (Unilever), Anacelle Bautista (PeoplePods Dormitories, Philippines, wild card participant) and Sabine Oudt (ABN AMRO). All 90 participants from 30 global organisations such as Unilever, Heineken, Danone, Ferrero, Aegon, FrieslandCampina, Philips and ABN AMRO were challenged to provide a tangible plan that generates global sustainable impact. The three Challenge winners will join Reward Partner Ferrero in Georgia (Eurasia) in May 2018 and use their leadership skills to contribute to a sustainable mission.

Call to action
Nudge believes that the key to a sustainable future lies with young leadership. Nudge therefore calls upon companies from all over the world to join the Nudge Global Impact Challenge and support the participation of young professionals. The Support Partners contribute to bringing together the best young professionals from all over the world and giving them the knowledge, tools and confidence to implement positive and innovative change. Joining the Nudge Global Impact Challenge can be arranged through the Nudge website.

About Nudge
Founded in 2010, Nudge strives towards a sustainable society. Nudge is a social enterprise and B Corp based in The Netherlands. Nudge connects people and organisations with its online platform in order to achieve grassroots initiatives that bring a positive and long lasting change in our society. By facilitating bottom-up initiatives, Nudge offers perspectives for action that are accessible to everyone. Nudge invites everyone to take action and make a positive contribution to society. Over 60,000 people and 300 organisations in The Netherlands are members of the Nudge community and this number is increasing daily.

About the Nudge Global Impact Challenge
The Nudge Global Impact  Challenge is a life-changing development programme and competition for the best young talents in the world who want to advance their leadership skills in sustainability and impact creation. More information can be found here.