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New York–based nonprofit The World Around (TWA) has announced the recipients of its 2025 Young Climate Prize. The award shines a light on designers and activists tackling pressing social and environmental problems. Applicants must be under the age of 25—"the generation enduring the brunt of climate change,” explains TWA founder Beatrice Galilee, “but the one who bears the least responsibility for creating it.”

Presented biennially, and first bestowed in 2023, this year’s prize recognizes four winners. Mohamed Salem Mohamed Ali, 23, a resident of Algeria’s Smara refugee camp, established a garden testing new approaches to desert agriculture. He hopes the project will encourage more Sahrawis to cultivate their own crops, helping address the group’s growing food insecurity. Twenty-four-year-old Kenneth Uche from Nigeria has developed a smokeless cooking fuel made from recycled agricultural waste—along with a high-performance stove—offering an affordable and clean-burning cooking technology that does not contribute to deforestation. Also from Nigeria, Amara Nwuneli, 17, is transforming an under-utilized plot of land in Lagos into a hub for climate education, using only repurposed and recycled materials. Lastly, 25-year-old Dayana Blanco Quiroga from Bolivia is adapting indigenous ecological techniques to decontaminate the heavily polluted waters of Uru Uru Lake in the Andes.

Winners Kenneth Uche of Nigeria and Dayana Blanco of Bolivia. Photos © Kenneth Och and Dayana Blanco, courtesy The World Around

The 2025 program, which asked for submission of a video, but did not entail a fee, references, or degree requirements, drew nearly 300 applications from 71 countries. This pool was narrowed to 25 finalists who attended a three-month-long “design academy,” meeting virtually as a group and individually with mentors selected for them from TWA’s global network. The idea, explains Galilee, was to offer support and expertise that would help the candidates develop and accelerate their projects. Among this year’s mentors were Katie Swenson, a senior principal at the non-profit architecture firm, MASS Design Group; Suchi Reddy, founder of architecture and design studio Reddymade, with work that touches on themes that include neuroaesthetics and design justice; and Germane Barnes, whose Studio Barnes investigates the relationship between architecture and identity.

The youngest winner is 17-year-old Amara Nwuneli of Nigeria. Photo © Amara Nwuneli, courtesy The World Around

From this cohort, a jury of leaders in design, architecture, and the arts, selected the four honorees. The 2025 jurors were Sheikha Reem Al-Thani, director of exhibitions at Qatar Museums; Aric Chen, general and artistic director of Rotterdam’s Het Nieuwe Instituut; visual artist Abraham Cruzvillegas; Elizabeth Diller, founding partner of Diller Scofidio + Renfro; Lady Elena Ochoa Foster, vice president of the Norman Foster Foundation; Tosin Oshinowo, curator of the 2023 Sharjah Architecture Triennial; Zöe Ryan, director of the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles; and Ben Watson, chief creative officer at MillerKnoll, a Young Climate Prize partner.

Initiated by Dayana Blanco, Uru Uru Team is a group of Indigenous youth in southwestern Bolivia dedicated to protecting a culturally significant lake ravaged by industrial pollution. Photo © Dayana Blanco, courtesy The World Around

Each of the honorees will officially receive their award, including a $5,000 cash prize, at The World Around Summit, a day-long architecture and design conference to be held April 27, at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.