President’s Design Award 2020 honours designers for outstanding local and global works
BillionBricks’ CEO Prasoon Kumar and Chief Design Officer Robert Verrijt were awarded the President’s Design of the Year award, Singapore’s highest honors in design. BillionBricks, which design and technology to reimagine housing, is a current participant in the ShelterTech Southeast Asia accelerator.
Tierra Grata, the commitment to bring basic services to disadvantaged communities
In five years, ShelterTech Andean region participant Tierra Grata has reached over 9000 users in 25 rural communities to address basic services, including solar street lighting and eco-friendly bathrooms.
Graviti secures $2.5M in seed funding
ShelterTech Mexico alumnus Graviti raised a US$2.5 million seed round led by Active Capital. The company’s platform enables low-income customers who are underserved by the traditional banking system to buy basic household appliances, such as water heaters and washing machines, and pay in installments without late fees.
India's first 3D-printed home offers affordable housing 'solution'
India’s Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman inaugurated what is considered by many to be India’s first 3D-printed home. Built by ShelterTech alumnus Tvasta Manufacturing Solution, with support from Habitat’s Terwilliger Center for Innovation in Shelter, the 600-square-foot home required a fraction of the time and materials needed for traditional construction methods.
Co-founders of ModulusTech recognized in Top 30 Under 30
The co-founders of ShelterTech India alumnus ModulusTech – Yaseen Khalid, M. Saquib Malik and Nabeel Siddiqui – were recognized in Forbes Asia’s Top 30 Under 30 for their work on the affordable housing crisis. ModulusTech offers innovative flat-packed homes that produce 50 times less greenhouse gas emissions compared to concrete buildings.
Modular homes are the future of housing
ShelterTech Southeast Asia participant CUBO Modular was featured in the Phillipines’ Daily Tribune for their affordable and sustainable modular homes made from bamboo.
Young Champions of the Earth: turning plastics into paving in Kenya
ShelterTech Kenya alumnus Nzambi Mattee, founder of Gjenge Makers Ltd, was one of seven innovators recognized as the United Nations Environmental Programme’s Young Champions of the Earth for 2020. Gjenge Makers turns plastic waste into durable housing construction materials, including driveway pavers, while creating youth employment opportunities.
Burning bright: Homeowner celebrates her final mortgage payment
In 1996, Maria applied to Black Hills Area Habitat for Humanity’s homeownership program in the hopes of providing a safe and stable home for her five children. Now 25 years later, she and her friends celebrated her final mortgage payment, and in Habitat tradition, they burned the mortgage papers she signed all those years ago.
Nearly 25 years ago, Maria applied to Black Hills Area Habitat for Humanity’s homeownership program in the hopes of providing a safe and stable home for her five children. As a residential cleaner and the children’s only caretaker, she hadn’t been able to find steady housing that accommodated their needs and budget.
“It took faith for me to be able to apply for this program — faith in God and in the hope that everything was going to be OK. My children were the motive through it all,” says Maria. “It was through the grace of God that I was able to qualify for the program and I became a homeowner.”
Since then, her children have grown up, attended college and started careers of their own — milestones that Maria credits to having a safe roof under which they could grow in health and in comfort.
Now, all these years later, in front of the home that has protected her children into adulthood, Maria gathered with a small group of friends and supporters. They celebrated her final mortgage payment, and in Habitat tradition, they burned the mortgage papers she signed back in 1996 — a ceremonial recognition of the completion of her partnership with Black Hills Area Habitat.
“May the fire of this symbolize the fire that all of you have in your heart that God placed in you,” she said as the papers caught fire and emotion caught in her voice. “Never let the flame of your love for charity, for others, extinguish.”
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Burning bright: Homeowner celebrates her final mortgage payment
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