High school students win with biodiesel for Mozambique

The trip to Mozambique will be the reward for all the work that the students had to put in their project. Chang: "We're delighted to have won this prize. We really do want our project to mean something to the people in Mozambique. We certainly won't be lying around comfortably on the beach over there."

Both the jury and the audience were amazed by the quality of all the presentations. Leen van den Oever, director of the Netherlands Institute for Biology (NIBI): "I'm sure many of the speakers present at this conference could learn something from these contestants." The jury had a hard time selecting a winner. The votes from the audience proved decisive in the end. The other four groups of students acknowledged the winning team as just winners. Joris Meinardi, runner-up, commented: "If there was anyone we would have to lose from, it would have been Sonja and Chang."

The two girls elaborated a proposal submitted by Wouter van Winden en Bram van Beek, two scientists from the Technical University Delft. They already won the scientists' award for their project at the Imagine-session during the Netherlands Biotechnology Congress in March 2004. Van Winden: "Biodiesel from algae offers two advantages over conventional biodiesel: it saves valuable land resources and offers bigger harvest per square meter."

The winners received a flight ticket from Cynthia Schneider, previously United States Ambassador in the Netherlands. Schneider emphasised the importance of collaboration between scientists and high school students and in doing so prized the school competition Imagine as an example. This school competition invites school children to elaborate project proposals submitted by scientists. The proposals describe useful and affordable applications of biotechnolgy in a developing country. Apart from the winning proposal, participating students created plans for the production of cattle fodder from the Water Hyacinth in Lake Victoria and local production of Artemisinin against malaria.

This was the first year for the Imagine school competition. It will be held again next year (starting in September) because of many positive reactions. Scientists are currently submitting new proposals for next year's round.

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Note to the editors:

For more information please contact:
Daan Schuurbiers, project co-ordinator Imagine
tel. +31 15 212 7800
mob. + 31 6 143 65216
email: daan.schuurbiers@efbpublic.org

Marije Blomjous, communication co-ordinator
Kluyver Centre for Genomics of Industrial Fermentation
tel. + 31 15 278 6654
mob. +31 6 543 32999
email: m.blomjous@tnw.tudelft.nl

www.kluyvercentre.nl/imagine

Imagine is an initiative of the Kluyver Centre for Genomics of Industrial Fermentation in conjunction with: Nederlands Instituut voor Biologie (NIBI), Nederlandse Biotechnologische Vereniging (NBV), the Centre for BioSystems Genomics (CBSG), the Netherlands Genomics Initiative (NGI), Stichting Biotechnologie Nederland (SBN) and the European Federation of Biotechnology (EFB).

Rotterdam, the Netherlands, 31 August 2004