New York City, New York – November 17, 2022 – Moonshot Platform has selected the finalists who will be honored at the Moonshot Awards and Festival in New York City November 15-17. Founded by Yemi A.D., a multidisciplinary artist of African descent, Moonshot Platform is an international non-profit that connects young innovators, entrepreneurs and change-makers with the resources they need to accelerate their work, creating a brighter, more equitable future. The awards will consist of a global ceremony rewarding leaders in sustainable development, and helping them move closer to addressing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by providing prize money, connections, and PR exposure that allows them to inspire on the global scale.

2022 marks the inaugural Moonshot Awards. This is a competition for those brave and motivated enough to challenge the status quo, culminating in an awards ceremony for finalists in New York on November 17 where the best projects will be awarded up to $100,000.

The Moonshot Award winners span six categories:

The Moonshot IDEA Award recognizes an original idea, or solution using technology that wins the trust of the jury in the field of the SDGs.

The Moonshot STARTUP Award recognizes a founder and their organization for exceptional potential in technology that has the capability to advance one or more of the SDGs.

The Moonshot LEARNING Award recognizes a founder and their organization for exceptional potential in inclusive and accessible high-quality education and advancement of student mental health. 

The Moonshot BORDERLESS Award recognizes a founder from the community of refugees, or indigenous communities and their organization for supporting, or inspiring those communities. 

The Moonshot EMERGENCY RESPONSE Award recognizes a founder and their organization for exceptional potential in the field of assistance during natural disasters, wars and epidemics. 

The Moonshot GRAND PRIX Award is the biggest prize of the competition, which will be awarded to one of the winners from the above categories, taking home a prize of $40,000.

Some of this year’s impressive finalists include:

• Luke Smith, winner of the Moonshot Startup award, founded a climate-tech business, Seaweed Culture, that reduces methane emissions in livestock using seaweed supplements. Luke believes that seaweed will help the livestock industry meet Net Zero targets and create climate conscious products.  He says, “this award has given Seaweed Culture global recognition on our journey to making the livestock industry more sustainable for the future.”
• Matyáš Boháček, winner of the Moonshot Idea Award, developed a mobile app that translates sign language into text. Now, through SPOTER, his sign language recognition engine, he is aiming to bring blazing-fast translations to end-users in intuitive web and mobile apps. Matyáš said receiving the award is “a great testament to the timeliness of SPOTER’s cause—I believe the momentum and support can accelerate its adoption and make technology, once again, more accessible for everyone.”
• Yoal Domai Dar, winner of the Moonshot Borderless Award,  is a refugee from South Sudan and founder and CEO of Spear of Africa Peace (SoAP), a project providing psychosocial support to refugees across East Africa through storytelling. Yoal said, “this is a dream come true.” 
• Nastya Podorozhnya, winner of the Moonshot Emergency Response Award is a Ukrainian sex educator, human rights activist and journalist who founded Martynka — a movement of Ukrainian women supporting other Ukrainian women in Poland. This movement provides psychological help to war refugees, tackles gender-based violence and helps with access to reproductive rights in Poland. 

In addition to these brilliant young people, Moonshot will recognize winners of all categories and announce the winner of the GRAND PRIX Award on November 17th in New York City. To learn more about Moonshot Platform, the Moonshot Awards, and the winners of the prestigious events, please see here.