Santa Clara University

Nonprofit that Wins for Best Global Health Wireless Solution Will Also Be Sponsored for Santa Clara University’s Social Entrepreneurship Program

SANTA CLARA, Calif., Dec. 9, 2009— A new award designed to spur development of wireless healthcare innovations will net one winner $50,000 in prizes, including participation in Santa Clara University’s Center for Science, Technology, and Society’s Global Social Benefit Incubator Program, or GSBI™. The annual GSBI is a competitive program that connects social entrepreneurs from around the world with a Silicon Valley support network, and educates them on how to achieve maximum sustainability and impact in their social enterprises.

The winner will also receive strategic and networking assistance from the mHealth Alliance, an umbrella group founded by the Rockefeller Foundation, the United Nations Foundation, and Vodafone Foundation to support cross-sector collaboration in delivering healthcare to the furthest reaches of wireless communications.

The award is an extension of the Vodafone Americas Foundation’s Wireless Innovation Project, which awards $600,000 to U.S. nonprofits engaged in solving problems in education, health, communication access, and economic or environmental development.

Nominees for both the Wireless Innovation Project and the mHealth Alliance Award must be U.S. nonprofits that meet certain eligibility requirements. The mHealth Alliance Award will be granted to the developer of an innovative wireless technology with the most potential to address critical health challenges, especially in developing regions. Nominations will be accepted until Feb. 1 through http://www.project.vodafone-us.com/index.html. The winner will be announced at the Global Philanthropy Forum on April 19, 2010.

“Healthcare is a huge unmet need being addressed globally by social entrepreneurs like those we invite to the Global Social Benefit Incubator each year,” said Jim Koch, founder of the program at SCU’s Center for Science, Technology, and Society. “This partnership is a great opportunity to secure a spot in GSBI for someone with the vision to attack this problem with innovative wireless technology.”

“In places where roads remain unpaved, and where basic infrastructure such as clean water and electricity are scant, mobile phones already have become an empowering force for millions,” said David Aylward, Executive Director of the mHealth Alliance. “The mHealth Alliance Award challenges innovators and social entrepreneurs to use mobile technology to advance health care delivery in even the most remote environments, such as through improved diagnosis, treatment or access to information.”

About the Vodafone Americas Foundation

Vodafone Americas Foundation is part of Vodafone’s global family of foundations. They are affiliated with Vodafone Group Plc, the world’s leading mobile telecommunications company, with ownership interests in 31 countries and Partner Markets in more than 40 countries. As of June 30, 2009, Vodafone had approximately 315 million proportionate customers worldwide. In the U.S., the foundation directs its philanthropic activities toward the San Francisco Bay and the Metro Denver Areas, where most of its employees live and work, and where the foundation strives to make a positive and enduring impact on its communities. The foundation is driven by a passion for the world around us, and they make grants that help people in their communities and around the world lead fuller lives. For more information about the Vodafone Americas Foundation, visit http://www.vodafone-us.com/.

About the mHealth Alliance
The mHealth Alliance is dedicated to enabling the delivery of quality healthcare to the farthest reaches of wireless networks in the developing world. Created by the United Nations Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, and Vodafone Foundation, the Alliances mission is to be a catalyst and accelerant, supporting leaders, celebrating successes, creating hard research, filling gaps, making connections, and forging public-private partnerships. More information is available at www.mhealthalliance.org or info@mhealthalliance.org.

About Santa Clara University’s Center for Science, Technology, and Society
Santa Clara University is committed to educating leaders of competence, conscience, and compassion who will help fashion a more just, humane, and sustainable world. As a University center of distinction, the Center for Science, Technology, and Society undertakes three integrative activities: educating students, engaging the public, and exemplifying the realization of social impact through our flagship Global Social Benefit Incubator Program (GSBI). In so doing, we forge strong connections across local and global businesses, civic and academic institutions, and the technology innovators of Silicon Valley in the context of Jesuit values of service. For more information visit www.scu.edu/sts.

About Santa Clara University
Santa Clara University, a comprehensive Jesuit, Catholic university located 40 miles south of San Francisco in California’s Silicon Valley, offers its 8,846 students rigorous undergraduate curricula in arts and sciences, business, and engineering, plus masters and law degrees, and engineering Ph.D.s. Distinguished nationally by one of the highest graduation rates among all U.S. masters universities, California’s oldest operating higher-education institution demonstrates faith-inspired values of ethics and social justice. For more information, see www.scu.edu.

Media Contact:
Deborah Lohse
SCU Media Relations, Asst. Director
dlohse@scu.edu
(408) 554-5121