February was an exciting month for em[POWER] on multiple fronts, including growth, exposure, and funding! For starters we were recognized once again for our multi-faceted Green operations model, first as a semi-finalist and honorable mention for Dr. Randall Pinkett’s Campus CEO Challenge thanks to an impromptu submission made by our Vice President and Co-Founder Nasir Uddin.

Nasir was also selected this month on behalf of em[POWER] as a winner for the 2012 Henry P. Becton Volunteer Impact Awards through the generosity of Becton, Dickinson and Company. This award will grant em[POWER] $5,000 towards the goal of better implementing our sustainable model to improve the lives of millions affected by unacceptable conditions in landfill environments. We are happy to announce that Becton, Dickinson and Company plans to match donations already made to us through Global Giving as well for $4000! As if this was not enough to make our month, another generous organization will also be donating $10,000 to em[POWER] through Global Giving in the coming weeks.

We are honored and humbled for the recognition and resources that have been coming our way, yet most importantly we are further energized to build on this momentum towards future phases of our rigorous mission. Giving to em[POWER] will be even easier for donors, already having the option of GlobalGiving.com, and now with the added option GivingSomeThing.org.

Our new affiliation with GivingSomeThing enables donors to send material goods directly to us so they can be shipped immediately to our sites in Bangladesh and Pakistan. This new avenue of giving will help us better provide for the daily needs of many while also allowing our supporters to give in more tangible and personal ways.

And our last but certainly not least bit of news: Nasir was invited to attend the sixth-annual Clinton Global Initiative University meeting in St. Louis from April 5^th to the 7^th as a Waste Management Mentor representing em[POWER]. We wish him well during that special opportunity, and look forward to sharing all the details of his experience.

Congratulations to our team working on the em[PURE] endeavor (our water purification to energy project)! They have been selected to present as Semi-Finalists in the TigerLaunch Competition at Princeton University.

Good luck team, you’ll do great!

Congrats to the team once again for being selected to be featured in a working session at CGI U!! It is our second year in a row!

“Your commitment was selected from a large pool of student commitments as an exemplary approach to addressing a specific global challenge.” – CGI

Thanks to everyone for all the support and we look forward to telling you all about CGIU this year!

Congrats to the team and Rutgers Student Chapter! We’ve been selected to attend the Clinton Global Initiative 2012 in Washington, DC for the 3rd Year in a Row!

Clinton Global Initiative University: “After reviewing hundreds of progress reports, we have identified your commitment as one of the most outstanding. Given the scope of your commitment and your dedication to action, we would potentially like to present your commitment to attendees at CGI U this year.”

We are proud of our team and excited for this excellent opportunity!

We spent the day as a working session to primarily support implementation work for Project Bangladesh as well as some discussions on Project Pakistan. We were able to work with our board members, Rutgers Chapter and Princeton Chapter members and our advisors as well individuals abroad who joined us on conference calls! We look forward to holding more of these working sessions in the future in order to make significant progress on our international projects.

View pictures from our all day workshop held at Princeton University!

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