Women’s Health Initiative honored at AEC

The Citizen Science Prize honors projects that involve citizens in research projects. The main prize (60,000 euros) went to the Belgian initiative for women’s health “Isala”. A team of researchers examined the microbiome (i.e. bacteria, viruses and fungi) of the vaginal tract in order to identify clinical pictures at an early stage. We were looking for 200 women who voluntarily took a swab. In just ten days, 5,500 women registered and took the swab using a specially developed tool. 275 women were then selected for long-term diagnosis. This enabled diagnostic methods and data to be improved.

Project against electronic waste

The “Digital Communities Award” (20,000 euros) went to the British initiative “The Restart Project”, which fights against the growing mountain of waste from electronic devices. She created “restart parties” where volunteers fixed broken electronics and developed a system to compare data from repair initiatives around the world. A total of 81,000 repair attempts have already been registered there.

The Danish “Urban Belonging Project” received the “Diversity & Collaboration Award” (20,000 euros). An attempt is made to document the experiences of underrepresented groups (e.g. homosexuals, the handicapped or the homeless) in Copenhagen’s city life and thus make them visible. There were a total of 321 submissions, and the projects will be shown at the Ars Electronica Festival in September.