GICHD Innovation Award 2025 – Announcing Our Two Winners!
We are thrilled to announce the two winners of the GICHD Innovation Award 2025! These outstanding innovators have demonstrated exceptional creativity and practical insight in addressing key challenges in mine action.
The GICHD Innovation Award 2025 was launched to engage the scientific and research community, encouraging innovators, researchers, and problem-solvers to develop ideas that respond to real-world needs in the sector. This initiative fostered fresh thinking, connecting innovation with practical application to drive measurable impact in mine action.
Join us in celebrating the achievements of this year’s winners as they push the boundaries of innovation and inspire new solutions for a safer world.
The Award winners
Award 1: Improving the Accuracy of Estimating EO Hazardous Areas
- Winner consortium: Japan International Cooperation Agency, Cambodian Mine Action Centre, and NEC Laboratories Europe GmbH
- Project: Exploring AI-Assisted Survey for Humanitarian Mine Action: A Pilot Study in Cambodia
- This pilot explores how artificial intelligence and satellite imagery can support survey teams in identifying hazardous areas more precisely, helping to save time, reduce costs, and increase safety.
Award 2: Quantifying Residual Risk in Land Release
- Winner consortium: EODynamics AB and Matthew Hartung
- Project: Applying the FAIR Model to Quantify Residual Risk in Humanitarian Land Release
- This approach adapts the FAIR model — a widely used risk-quantification framework — to help practitioners better estimate and communicate residual risk after clearance operations.
The winning submissions received a CHF 4,000 prize and presented their work on 28 October 2025 in Luxembourg.
The Award
Incentives and recognition
The Awardee(s) will be given the opportunity to showcase their idea at the upcoming GICHD Innovation Conference 2025, explore avenues for partnerships, and receive a monetary prize of CHF 4000 as recognition of their achievement.
Target Audience
Individuals, organizations, and consortiums that bring diverse perspectives and expertise from a variety of sectors including academia, technology providers, and entrepreneurs.
Evaluation
An independent panel of experts will review the submissions based on evaluation criteria including; innovation, feasibility, scalability and potential impact. The panel will include experts from mine action, academia, technology, the GICHD, as well as mine action donors.
Timeline overview: Key dates of submissions and evaluation process
| Deadline for submission of abstracts | 20 May 2025 |
| Communication of shortlisted participants | 28 May 2025 |
| Deadline for submission of full papers (selected participants) | 15 July 2025 |
| Communication of final participants | 05 August 2025 |
| Presentations to the award panel (final participants) | 06 - 31 August 2025 |
| Award decision and announcement | 01 September 2025 |
| Award ceremony/GICHD Innovation Conference 2025 | 28 - 30 October 2025 |
Point of contact
For additional information about the Award, please contact Alain Nellen at a.nellen@gichd.org
Protection of personal data: By participating in the GICHD Innovation Award 2025, you consent to the Privacy Notice for GICHD Events. Requests or questions about how your personal data will be used can be sent to innovation@gichd.org. For additional information about the Award, please contact Alain Nellen (a.nellen@gichd.org)
Donors
The GICHD Innovation Award was made possible thanks to the financial support of our donors.
Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA) Switzerland