First "Intercultural Innovation Award" at UN's 4th Alliance of Civilizations Forum in Doha / BMW Group and UNAOC honor ten cutting-edge initiatives

Munich/New York/Doha (ots) - The "BMW Group Award for
Intercultural Innovation in cooperation with the Alliance of
Civilizations under the auspices of the UN" was bestowed upon ten
initiatives from around the world at the fourth UN Alliance of
Civilizations Forum on December 12. Jorge Sampaio, High
Representative for the Alliance of Civilizations, and Konstanze
Carreras, Head of Corporate Social Responsibility at the BMW Group,
hosted the gala function for the Award for Intercultural Innovation.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon congratulated the winners as well
during the Forum.

This award represents a new kind of partnership between the
private sector and the UN system, aiming to select highly innovative
projects that promote dialogue and inter-cultural understanding and
to make a vital contribution to safety and peace in societies around
the world.

More than 400 proposals from 70 countries were considered for the
award. They included projects from emerging countries such as China
and Brazil as well as others, such as one from South Sudan, the
world's youngest country, and another from the Solomon Islands, the
world's smallest country. The award-winning projects cover a wide
range of areas, including the role of youth and women in promoting
intercultural understanding, immigration, integration, and the use of
social media in fostering the collaboration among people from
different parts of the world.

The Award for Intercultural Innovation aims to make the work of
the awarded projects more impactful by connecting their initiatives
to new resources and by helping them expand the scope of their work.

Among the winners of the first "Award for Intercultural
Innovation": the project MEJDI of the Center for World Religions,
Diplomacy and Conflict Resolution, which is dedicated to promoting
peace and understanding in the Middle East, and the Canadian Maytree
Foundation with their "DiverseCity onboard" initiative that fosters
the empowerment of ethnic minorities in the Greater Toronto Area. The
two projects won the first and second prize, respectively. The third
prize went to the pan-European project CafeBabel.com, which convinced
experts with its "Europe on the Ground" initiative, an intercultural
journalism project.

Besides the three main winners, seven further projects were
honored with the "Intercultural Innovation Award" in Doha, Qatar -
among them the Brazilian Vaga Lume Association, the Italian "Chirom
e... chino" project, the Middle Eastern radio project "All for Peace
Radio (AFP)", the German initiative "Kickfair" as well as the
educational project "Irenia" which focuses on the Mediterranean
countries, the global "Universal Subtitles" concept run by the
Participatory Culture Foundation and the Canadian "Youth Empowering
Parents (YEP)" program. In addition to offering prize money, the
UNAOC and the BMW Group are committed to help these projects expand
and replicate in other settings where they may be useful. Winners
will become members of the WIFI, the World Intercultural Facility for
Innovation. WIFI is a platform for winners to connect with potential
donors and mentors and to enter into a dialogue with other
award-winners. Under the coordination of the WIFI team, they will
participate in conferences and workshops; they will be connected to
policy-makers and foundations; and they will become active members of
the WIFI community of practical experts who help each other in
achieving their particular goals.

This year's winners of the Intercultural Innovation Award are:

- All for Peace Radio Station www.allforpeace.org

- CafeBabel www.cafebabel.com

- Center for World Religions, Diplomacy and Conflict Resolution -
MEJDI www.crdcgmu.wordpress.com

- Chirom e. Chino chiromechino.blogspot.com

- Irènia, Jocs de Pau www.irenia.net

- Kickfair www.kickfair.org

- Maytree Foundation www.maytree.com

- Participatory Culture Foundation www.pculture.org

- Vaga Lume Association www.vagalume.com.br

- Youth Empowering Parents www.yepeducation.com

For further information, please visit:
http://Interculturalinnovation.org.

Picture material is available under www.press.bmwgroup.com.

Contact:
Konstanze Carreras
E-Mail: Konstanze.Carreras@bmw.de,
Telefon: +49-89-382-52894