 Welcome to the third plenary of ICSD 2022, the Siemens-Gamesa Award Announcement. Maria Cortes-Putsch, please begin. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening to everyone. It is very exciting to be here today to announce the winner of the award, Universities for Gold 13. This is the result of a partnership with Siemens-Gamesa as well as SDSN. Very briefly, let me tell you about this project that started about a year ago when we chose five member institutions of our very vast network of SDSN with over 1,700 member institutions. These five universities are located around the world. So we had Xinhua University in China, we had the University of Pretoria in South Africa, the University of Göttingen in Germany, the Pontifical University of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, as well as Arizona State University here in the US. Now, these five universities set up teams that launched a call for solutions. We wanted to find projects from student teams, teams that were interdisciplinary from engineers and economists and students from the arts sector that were addressing Gold 13 climate action. Then each of these universities did a first round of selection and presented one project. So we had five projects from each of these universities that started working with Siemens-Gamesa. The engineers, physicists, mathematicians from Siemens-Gamesa mentored each of these teams for a period of over four months. And now we have done a next round of selection and we will be announcing today the winner. Let me just say that this has been an extraordinary experience and partnership for which I'm very grateful. Our university members have really enjoyed this. The students have found this experience extremely useful and inspiring and we've seen their phenomenal talent. And I want to address all of you, the students that participated. Thank you so much. We are in awe with you and we have a lot of hope placed on you. We've seen your submissions and they're all extraordinary. Thank you so much for participating. I'm going to hand the floor to Maria Cortida from Siemens-Gamesa. So thank you, Maria. And good morning, good afternoon, good evening, depending on the country you are. I would like to start my speech by thanking UNSDSM. It has been amazing for us, this project, our first edition. I hope. Thank you for your support every day. You've been there a lot of months with many, many problems. Thank you, Maria and your team. And thank you, Jeffrey, for hosting this ceremony and for pushing and being there and supporting this amazing project for us. And SDG for quality education, in particular science, technology, engineering, and STEM in short, are part of the agenda 2030 and they are key for a better future, especially when it comes to combat climate change. One of the biggest challenge humanity has ever faced. And that's why this new competition organized by Siemens-Gamesa and SDSN universities for SDG 13 is all about. We want the students worldwide to be an active element in the fight against climate change and to be key contributors for the agenda 2030 for a better plan. From our experience and the living position in renewable energies, we know the importance of innovation in the fight against climate change. Thanks to innovation and the skillet workforce, we managed to make a real change for the planning. I will give you some concrete examples regarding our field, our sector, our company. Our standard Siemens-Gamesa onshore turbine in 2012 avoided the emission into the atmosphere of more than 5,500 tons of CO2 per year. 10 years later, our standard onshore turbine avoids almost three times more emissions per year. And as for Siemens-Gamesa offshore start turbine, it avoids already 40,000 tons CO2 more than seven times the achievement of 2012. That's a clear example of what talent and technology can bring to sustainability on the planet. But to keep advances, we need a next generation of talented professionals to take over. Sadly, there is a clear lack of technological vocation among your people. We have several studies. I don't want to bore you with figures on the study. But for example, according with the UK study in 2019, children's love for STEM and interest was in free fall among students aged 9 to 12 with a 10% decline in interest in science, 12% for technology, and 14% in computing. Over a period of four years, this is dramatic. Another concrete example is a recent report from the National Science Board in the USA that shows an accelerated decline in the number of students in many STEM programs with an overall drop in undergraduate enrollment of 3.6% in 2020. Meanwhile, women worldwide make up only 28% of the workforce in STEM, according to the UNESCO data. It will impact because of the lack of role models. The good news today is that among the finalists, the number of female students were close to parity. And even one of the team were only human. All of the students who participated this year are showing the path for younger students who also want to change the world. Let me finish by saying that teamwork has been a key element of the success of this competition. During months, students joined forces to change the world, putting together their skills and the area of expertise for the common good. So thank you to all the students who participate in this competition. And to the universities, as Maria said, Tsinghua in China, Pretoria in South Africa, Gottingham in Germany, Epondificiart University of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, and Arizona State University in the United States of America. To where we saw the world and students around the world, that they are good and real solutions to combat climate change. It is something that together, working hands in hands and in alliance with all of them, we can fight. I also want to thank the mentors who have been key to guide the students during the process and all the members of the jury that have dedicated many, many hours to take the decision. Timas Gamesa is committed to this goal. And that's also why I am already looking forward to why I am already looking forward to the next edition for new solutions to SDG 13. Thank you all. Thank you very much, Maria. And I'm going to hand it over to Professor Sacks, President of the CSM. Well, thank you so much. I am in awe of what you two have put in motion. So Maria and Maria, all gratitude and to the students and the mentors and to everybody listening. This is really a remarkable project and a remarkable opening of, I think, a hugely creative approach for the future. We know we have a crisis, a huge crisis. We're every day now seeing more climate disasters around the world. It's been a very, very tough year. We have mega floods in Pakistan. We have huge floods just these days in Italy. We've had the biggest drought in modern history in Europe. We've had massive drought in China. We've had mega forest fires. The list goes on. And yesterday, massive hurricane hit Puerto Rico. We know we're in the middle of a struggle. We lost a lot of time in this world facing the climate reality. Some companies have been there from the beginning, Siemens-Gamesa and its progenitor companies have been working at alternative energy for more than 40 years. But a lot of the world has been late. And now we are really in the middle of the crisis. And we know that we need solutions, big scale solutions, global scale solutions. We need to decarbonize the world energy system by mid-century at the latest. And it's an enormous challenge. It's really an unprecedented challenge because never before has the entire world, all the governments, had to agree on a framework to change the core technology of the world economy in a systematic and coordinated way. This is, I'd call it an adventure if it weren't even more dramatic than that. It is, of course, an adventure. But it is a drama, really, to have the 193 UN member states cooperating on something so big and so complex is unprecedented. Well, in order to accomplish this energy transformation, we need major companies. And Siemens-Gamesa is one of the world's leading renewable energy companies and a world leader, especially in wind power, onshore wind power, offshore wind power. And as you just heard from Maria, it has been innovating and improving technology and lowering costs of renewable energy dramatically in year by year, I would say. And this is true overall of renewable energy, that we have options that we couldn't even have imagined just a decade ago. But what you are doing is really making sure that that innovation process continues in a dynamic way right into the new young engineers and young leaders of the coming generation. And it's a wonderful project. Here you have leading engineers acting as mentors to rising young engineers who are going to lead this energy transition five to 10, 15 years. And it's a wonderful, generous action by your company. But I think it's also a great investment by your company. You're going to find, first of all, real talent all over the world, phenomenal talent. You're also going to find solutions. My experience in 42 years of the university teaching is the grad students have great answers. The undergrads have great answers. So you're going to find real innovation. And I'm sure the mentors were thrilled as well. They put in a lot of time. So it's a real effort. But also, first, there is a joy of teaching, I can say. And in addition, you learn a lot from your students. And what this project has done is to enable students from universities, as you heard, in all parts of the world, get excellent mentorship to work on practical problem solving exactly directed at this challenge. And I want to add one final remark. SDSN, the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network, has just launched a new Council of Engineers for the Energy Transition in partnership with UNIDO, the UN Industrial Development Organization based in Vienna. I can't wait to bring the results of this work to this Council, because we will connect it with the Council, through the Council, with governments and with the problem solvers around the world. So we'll amplify the results of what the students have come up with and what the mentors at Siemens-Gamesa come up with. And we'll be able to do that now in a very effective and efficient worldwide dissemination. So I couldn't be more thrilled. And I can't wait to hear who won. Over to you, Maria. Let's find out who won this year's edition. So after hard deliberation amongst the members of the jury, including experts from Siemens, as well as people from the SDSN, led by our colleague, Ellen Acre, who I want to thank for this effort too. The award this year goes to the Xinhua University in China project called Bite Rainforest, our new pathway to realize the intangible value of the tropical rainforest. I think we have a short video. Let me just say that this solution has been considered to be the most innovative. It used a nature-based solution approach that incorporates digital technology, especially with real-time monitoring data on carbon prices and carbon trading for entry prices. So this is very important moving forward as ICT becomes an integral part of climate change mitigation. I think let's just watch the video of the solution. An idea, an earnest wish to make a change, a journey in search of harmony between us humans and the nature. Tropical rainforests play an important ecological role of the Earth and they can absorb 17% of global carbon dioxide emissions. However, we are facing the fact that tropical rainforests are disappearing at a rate of 50 hectares per minute. In Hainan and Xishuambana, the Bite Rainforest team members investigated six nature reserves, conducted a few interviews and focus groups to collect first-hand data. In the field trip, we witnessed the tropical rainforests were changed into cash crops and the indigenous people were away from their home because of livelihood problems. After all the investigations and interviews, we concluded two main challenges faced in rainforest conservation. Found the issue and lack of labor support. We seek to create a new pathway to realize the intangible value of tropical rainforest. We seek to attract impact investors as a new financial source, supplementing the existing public funding and collaborate with NGOs to ensure profit of reforestation for the local communities. Specifically, we aim to provide strong data support and construct a set of blockchain-based digital MRV system to enhance the transparency and reduce the time and cost of manual MRV process. MRV is the global standard to track the impact of mitigation actions. This platform will bridge all international stakeholders. We will then establish a public-private partnership mechanism to valorize carbon sink of tropical rainforest through international voluntary carbon market. The digital MRV is a key component of our solution and there are four layers in its architecture. In the data acquisition layer, we realize automatic and near real-time monitoring. We apply 10-meter satellite imagery and aerial laser scanning to monitor the trees. We will also identify the wild animal species by infrared cameras. In the data processing layer, the data is sent to the project design document and then to the blockchain network. We quantify changes in carbon storage, forest fragmentation, value of ecosystem service, and biodiversity conservation benefits. In the data registration layer, after MRV, the carbon sink is converted into carbon credits and can be traded in the secondary markets. In the user service layer, because blockchain is a shared immutable lighter, all stakeholders have a clear picture of the development of rainforest carbon sink from cradle to the grave. Our final product terminal is the data copied based on Web3. On the left side are real-time monitoring data. The real-time carbon price is displayed in the lower left corner. On the right side are the participants involved in the transaction, including real-time carbon trading bodies and key enterprises. Our way forward has four phases. First, we will build our prototype and receive project funding. Second, we will run a trial in Hainan Fanjial Natural Reserve. And after that, we estimate it will success and improve the live quality of local communities. For the final stage, we plan to expand and cooperate with international voluntary carbon markets to form a blockchain-based secondary market for carbon credit trading. The size of international voluntary carbon offset market skyrocketed from $150 million in 2017 to $750 million in 2021. The carbon sink price of $3 to $5 per ton of carbon in 2020 is estimated to increase to $20 to $50 per ton of carbon by 2030. The rapid market growth indicates a large potential of market demand growth. We are by to bring forest. We are proposing a nature-based solution to solve the climate change problem. Well, Bravo, what a wonderful project. I want to congratulate the team, Yuxi Chen, Ao Xueli, Taiyue Yu, VA and Yu-Yong Wang, as well as their supervising professors and mentors. And finally, the SDG hub team at Xinguang University led by Yan Yixing and, of course, our colleagues there. I do have to mention that we received note that the second solution was also fantastic. So I want to congratulate you, too. This is a project called a novel solar power non-termal plasma technology for water treatment in rural communities. This project was presented by the team of the University of Pretoria in South Africa. And it's a solution that is low cost and that has a high societal value and leverages existing technology. And we hope that you can lead these solutions to fruition with the help of the CMN's mentors. Well, what a fantastic way to start for us the day. Before we conclude, allow me to thank, once again, our partners at CMN's Gamesa, the mentors. And then, of course, a special mention to Rocío Millán and to Marta García-Arlo that have led the project from the beginning until the end, as well as to our local teams in each of these universities that have put together the calls for solutions, worked with the teams, helped us and the mentors establish those meetings, and go all the way up to here. We are, I think, in a position to announce that we're going to repeat this prize, this award, to next year. So looking forward to many more solutions. Absolutely. Bravo. This is Yixitian and Auxia Li. This is Yu Junhuang and Kaiyue Yu. Tropical rainforests play an important ecological role for the Earth. They can absorb 17% of human-made global carbon dioxide emissions. But rainforests are in great danger of deforestation, so we need to protect them. We are better in forest. First, we would like to say thank you to the jury for selecting us. Thank you to United Nations SDSN, and thank you to Siemens Gamesa, especially for our two mentors, Howard and Summer. And we also want to say thank you to all the people who work for the protections of the rainforest, especially the local communities and the NGOs. We would also say many thanks to the Institute for Sustainable Development Goals, Qinghua University. Thank you for continually supporting during the whole process. In seven months from the end of February to now, we have got wider and deeper understanding of climate actions, and we met great team members each other. Our next step is to continue our work with local communities and NGOs to implement our digital solution for rainforest protection. We also hope to continue the collaboration with UN SDSN and Siemens Gamesa. We would like to thank former team members for their contributions to the early development of the concept. Niki, are you there? Yes, we can see you. Go ahead. Hi, hello, everyone. Hello, Professor Sat and Maria and Maria. And good morning, good evening, and good afternoon to every participant from the world. Thanks, SDSN and Siemens Gamesa for initiating this wonderful global competition last year. It's just such a great honor and pleasure for Qinghua as the Institute not only to host the China competition, but also to get to know these talented students and hear their amazing ideas, not only from Qinghua University, because I basically observed other four universities' ideas as well. And they are just way more than brilliant. I'm Zhang Yili, head of Office of Qinghua University as a DG Institute. As from my point of view during the past few months, the students and their project have been developed so much. And we actually have those brilliant mentors and staff members who could actually support and give the ideas to the student teams, which is very, very insightful. And as I still remember the talkings from Professor Dr. Sat, he said, the university is the driving force for the SDG. Well, by joining hands with private sectors, such as the CMOS Commissar, I think we are stronger than ever to solve the global problems. So I do like every project. And I've seen in this competition from these five marvelous universities, I just cannot wait to start the second competition next year. So thank you. This is so wonderful. And let me add that we're having our meeting of the Leadership Council of the Sustainable Development Solutions Network here in New York at the time of the UN General Assembly. And last evening in New York, we had a session about the rainforests. And the question was how to practically devise projects to provide valuation of ecosystem services. So this project is exactly what we were puzzling about last evening. And we will take it now to leaders of Amazon Conservation directly and connect with the students because I think that there's a real opportunity to put this into direct use. So the timeliness is also incredible. And congratulations to Tsinghua, to all of the participant universities. But we're so proud of Tsinghua and so proud of the students. Yes, I also want to congratulate the team. Thank you very much for this amazing contribution. And hopefully we develop together this solution because I have heard that this is very interesting for our company and could be a solution that we can develop for the better planet and for the better company as well. Thank you very much, really. Bravo. Thank you. All right, well, thank you everyone who joined us today. And then ICSD continues. Remember that there are many sessions happening throughout the rest of the day. So sign up for them. And we look forward to seeing you today and tomorrow. The conference continues tomorrow. Have a good day, everyone. Bye.