Voting for World Challenge global contest on now

World Challenge is a global competition aimed at finding projects from around the world that have shown enterprise and innovation at a grassroots level.

World Challenge is brought to you by BBC World News, Newsweek, and Shell, and it is about championing and rewarding projects that really make a difference.

Sri Lanka won the top prize twice in the contest’s brief six-year history; in 2006, ‘Maximus’ won it for a project producing paper from banana bark and elephant dung, and last year’s winner was the ‘Safe Bottle Lamp Project’ aimed at preventing bottle lamp burns.

Every year, a jury selects the best 12 projects out of several hundred entries.

The winner is then chosen by the public through global online voting, which for this year commenced last week and would close on 12 November 2010.

BBC has filmed the 12 finalist projects and they will be telecast on BBC World in the next few weeks, along with another film on the ‘Safe Bottle Lamp Project’ that was produced last month by BBC. This year’s finalists are as follows:

Cyber capital – Denmark, OK coral – Tanzania, Pass it on – Peru, Double boiled – Kenya, Growth cycle – Zambia, A class apart – Guatemala, Burn after eating – India, The only way is up – Madagascar, Saving from a rainy day – Mexico, Charge of the light brigade – Rwanda and In a nutshell – Malawi.

According to last year’s winner Dr. Wijaya Godakumbura, there had been great enthusiasm among Sri Lankans to vote last year. It enabled little Sri Lanka to outvote the other 11 finalists from countries with much larger populations.

Although there is no Sri Lankan project among the finalists this year, it would certainly be an interesting exercise to assist the organisers of this prestigious global contest to pick the winner. To learn about the 12 finalists through short video clips and voting instructions, you could visit www.theworldchallenge.co.uk.