The Earth Prize 2025: UAE students named Middle East winners in $100K global competition for gamified eco-education platform

• The Earth Prize is the world’s largest environmental competition and ‘ideas incubator’ for 13-19-year-olds, empowering young people with mentorship and $100K funding
• Seven Regional Winners have recently been announced, representing the regions of North America, Africa, Asia, Central and South America, Oceania and Southeast Asia, Europe and the Middle East
• The Middle East winners developed EcoMind Academy, an AI-powered platform that integrates sustainability into school subjects - engaging students with challenges, rewards and real-world eco-friendly actions
• The 15-17 year olds are the first winners of The Earth Prize to come from UAE
• Each team receives $12.5K to develop and implement their idea
• The public vote is now open crown the Global Winner on Earth Day (April 22)

In a bid to improve recycling education, four students from Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, have been named the Middle East Winners of The Earth Prize 2025. Israa Ashraf, Almaha Almansoori, Fatma Hussen and Jourey Abdullah’s solution is an innovative platform  integrating sustainability into education, called “EcoMind Academy”.

Aged between 15 and 17, the students from Ghayathi Common School were driven by the global issue of recycling inefficiency. According to the World Economic Forum, approximately 400 million tonnes of plastic waste are produced annually, with only about 9% being recycled, leaving the rest to accumulate in landfills and release greenhouse gases, contributing to global warming.

EcoMind Academy tackles this crisis by making sustainability education engaging and action-driven. Alongside its AI-powered app, which integrates eco-learning into subjects like math and English through challenges and rewards, the project builds strong partnerships with schools and eco-conscious organisations, allowing educators to integrate sustainability into curriculums and businesses to support green initiatives. Beyond the classroom, EcoMind Academy empowers communities through interactive workshops, sustainability events, and real-world eco-challenges, ensuring users don’t just learn about sustainability - they actively contribute to it.

The team impressed The Earth Prize’s expert jury with their final pitch, having excelled in the programme’s incubation and mentorship phases, and will now receive $12.5K to scale up their app further. Israa Ashraf (15, Egyptian) team leader, commented:

The Earth Prize aims to empower the next generation with all the tools they need to develop their eco solutions for real life impact, including one-to-one mentoring, learning resources and funding of $100K for the winning teams to scale their solutions. Since 2021, The Earth Prize has reached over 15,000 young people across 160 countries and territories, and awarded $500K to the top teams.

Previous applicants have garnered global media attention in outlets such as Forbes, Business Insider, EuroNews, Positive.News and UN Today, and continue to scale their solutions after the competition has ended. For instance, team Delavo (Winners of The Earth Prize 2023), who invented a cutting-edge filter that recycles up to 90% of toxic laundry waste water, partnered with a national manufacturer and applied for a patent to make their solution a reality. 

The Earth Prize was started by The Earth Foundation, a Swiss non-profit organization based in Geneva, as a way to empower and educate young people to tackle environmental challenges. As young people live through and observe extreme weather events such as the LA wildfires, many are mobilized to act - choosing to create solutions for our planet.

A recent study showed that 59% of youth and young adults are very or extremely worried about climate change, and more than 45% said their feelings about climate change negatively affected their daily life and functioning. 

The Public Vote to decide the Global Winner is now open until Tuesday April 22 (Earth Day): https://www.theearthprize.org/vote  

About the students

      1.    Israa Ashraf Abdellatif — Grade 10, 15 years old, Egyptian

      2.    Almaha Ajlan Almansoori — Grade 11, 16 years old, Emirati

      3.    Jourey Abdullah Salama — Grade 12, 17 years old, Syrian

      4.    Fatma Hussen Sewelam — Grade 12, 17 years old, Egyptian

School: Ghayathi Common SchoolPrincipal: Moza Saeed Mubarak Almansoori (Emirati)

Teacher: Hanan Gamal Moustafa - Supervisor of the Sustainability Heroes Team