Dr. Laurie Marker, founder and Executive Director of the Cheetah Conservation Fund (CCF), was awarded $50,000 by the Tech Museum of Innovation at the Tech Awards gala, held Nov. 12.  The award recognized CCF’s Bushblok program, which uses a high-pressure extrusion process to convert invasive, habitat-destroying bush into a clean-burning fuel log, an economically viable alternative to existing products such as firewood, coal, lump charcoal and charcoal briquettes.  Plans are underway to use the biomass to power electric plants to help energy-dependent Namibia manufacture its own electricity.  Clearing invasive bush helps restore millions of acres of Namibian savannah to its original state and improve the habitat for both the cheetah and its prey. 

Marker and CCF were one of five Tech Museum Laureates in the Intel Environment Award Category and 25 global innovators recognized by the Tech Awards for applying technology to benefit humanity and spark global change. The Tech Awards, presented by Applied Materials, Inc., selected Marker from among hundreds of nominations representing 68 countries. While five Laureates are nominated for each category, only one Laureate per category receives the $50,000 cash prize during the annual Awards Gala in San Jose, Calif. on November 12.

“Given the inspiring achievements of the other Tech Laureates, I'm incredibly honored that CCF received this award,” Marker said.  “I had thought that a simple fuel log that helps cheetahs and people would be too basic to be recognized by the Tech Museum, but that's exactly what was so amazing about all the Laureates—their ideas are simple yet revolutionary to the people whose lives they affect.”

The Tech Awards: Technology Benefiting Humanity is one of the premier annual humanitarian awards programmes in the world, recognizing technical solutions that benefit humanity and address the most critical issues facing our planet and its people. The awards program honours 25 scientists and innovators annually alongside the recipient of the Global Humanitarian Award. Laureates are selected by a prestigious panel of international judges organized by the Center for Science, Technology, and Society at Santa Clara University, and made up of Santa Clara University faculty as well as leaders from educational and research institutions, industry and the public sector around the world.