Making the World Healthier, Cleaner

The 2014 Grinnell College Innovator for Social Justice Prize — a $100,000 award split between the recipient and his/her organization — was presented in October to founders of two organizations, Sanergy and SIRUM, that are making the world a healthier, cleaner place.

All four 2014 prizewinners — Ani Vallabhaneni and Lindsay Stradley of Sanergy and Adam Kircher and Kiah Williams of SIRUM — shared their experiences and expertise on campus Oct. 6–10 during the fourth annual Grinnell Prize Symposium. In addition to giving formal presentations, prizewinners met with health-related student groups and community partners; high school civic classes; the African and Caribbean Student Union; the College Board of Trustees; and even teamed up with students to win at pub quiz night.

Faculty members also invited prizewinners into their seminars and tutorials to expand Grinnell curricular efforts using real world contexts and problem-solving.

Liz Queathem, senior lecturer in biology, says her First-Year Tutorial students and the prizewinners “discussed everything, from the failure of the free-market system to address environmental issues to how their relationships with their peers have changed with their success.”

“We were continually inspired and challenged by the students,” Stradley says. “Their level of questions in classes and at other events throughout the week matched the caliber of those we receive from partners or others who have actively been in the social enterprise space for years.”

Kircher says, “Students are not held back by preconceived notions of how industries are supposed to work and in several cases helped us find ideas that were hiding in plain sight.”

Julia Schafer ’18, one of Queathem’s tutorial students, says the prizewinners offered inspiring advice. “They addressed the fun and challenging aspects of a startup and encouraged us all to find what we are passionate about, what really interests us, and pursue it. Someone who was only one year older than me originally thought of SIRUM. It’s encouraging to see what driven people can accomplish. I received a valuable and not so subtle push: That could be me winning that prize — there are so many impacts I can have on the world if I want to.”

Saunia Powell ’02, who became the coordinator of the Grinnell Prize earlier this year, says, “Having the prizewinners on campus this fall inspired me to see how we, as Grinnellians, can walk the talk to build a more justice-minded global community.”

Stradley was surprised to learn that this is only the fourth year of the Grinnell Prize. “Its renown within the social enterprise community is much greater than I would expect it to have achieved so quickly,” she says. “Given Grinnell’s deep history with social justice, the prize is a brilliant way to highlight this critical distinction of its values and generally strengthen the College’s brand.”

“With the planned internships, fellowships, courses and research projects coming out of these new partnerships,” Powell says, “the sort of contextual learning, social responsiveness, and innovative problem solving that the Prize honors will continue to be at the heart of what a Grinnell education is all about.”

About the Winners

Ani Vallabhaneni and Lindsay Stradley, husband and wife, founded Sanergy in 2010 and launched operations in Nairobi, Kenya, the following year. Their sanitation reform model brings accessible, affordable, and sustainable sanitation to urban areas where waste is typically dumped into waterways, contaminating water supplies and spreading disease.

In 2011, Adam Kircher and Kiah Williams turned a small student organization at Stanford University into Supporting Initiatives to Redistribute Unused Medicine (SIRUM), a pioneering, technologically cutting-edge nonprofit. SIRUM is a nimble online platform that facilitates the redistribution of unopened, unexpired prescription medications.

Learn more about the 2014 prizewinners.