[By NBC-1TV H. J Yook]The Coca-Cola Company today announced the winners of Coca-Cola’s Shaping A Better Future Grant Challenge - a grant challenge exclusively for members of the World Economic Forum’s Global Shapers Community. Global Shapers are young leaders between 20 and 30 years old who are organized into a network of more than 300 city-based hubs. The challenge, announced at the Forum’s 2013 Annual Meeting, empowered Global Shapers to launch programs that address the world’s most challenging societal issues including youth employment, education, community security as well as protecting the environment, with the opportunity to win seed money to sustain and expand their initiatives.

“Powering Education,” a joint project from Hubs in Rome and Nairobi, received the $50,000 grand prize. The funding will accelerate the Global Shapers’ efforts to bring safe, clean energy to school-age children living in rural areas of Sub-Saharan Africa where the lack of electricity makes studying difficult after the sun sets. The program provides schools with solar lanterns that children can borrow, replacing more common and dangerous kerosene lamps. Students recharge the solar lanterns daily at school, and families can buy them over time by paying a small daily fee.

“These breakthrough initiatives all bring together innovation, scale and collaboration across what we call the ‘Golden Triangle’ of business, government and civil society. Indeed, one of the most powerful differentiators for the winning groups is the diversity of perspectives they brought to their projects,” said Muhtar Kent, Chairman and CEO, The Coca-Cola Company. “Our support of the Global Shapers movement reflects our view that true leading begins with taking action. These young leaders understand and, indeed, exemplify that same approach.”

David Aikman, Managing Director, Head of New Champions and the Global Shapers Community, World Economic Forum, said: “Young people are an indispensable part of the solution to the challenges that communities face: economic growth, addressing social injustice and creating sustainable change. The Coca-Cola Company clearly sees this and has embraced the disruptive power of the Community. We greatly appreciate its role in helping to bring the entrepreneurial drive of Global Shapers’ to positively impact the lives of more people. ‘We are very proud of the growth of the Shapers - now with more than 300 community Hubs worldwide and over 3,000 young people’.”