Iloilo Scientist Is First Filipino Rolex Awardee

MANILA, Philippines – Iloilo professor Alexis Belonio is the first Filipino to win the prestigious Rolex Award for inventing a stove that converts rice husks into environmentally friendly cooking gas.

Founded in 1976, the Rolex Award is given to “visionaries” who have undertaken ground-breaking projects.

As an Associate Laureate, Belonio received $50,000 and a steel and gold Rolex chronometer at the awarding ceremony.

His invention turns agricultural waste into purified gas in a top-lit, updraft and biomass gas stove. The low-cost stove powered by rice husks–the most abundant of farm wastes–reduces fuel cost and minimizes greenhouse gas.

Stoves fueled by rice husks have been used before, but are sooty and unhealthy. It did not generate enough heat to cook food quickly.

Converting husks to gas provides a much hotter, cleaner flame for cooking–not to mention a cheaper source of energy.

A ton of rice husks contains the same energy as 415 liters of petrol or 378 liters of kerosene. A few handfuls of rice husks can boil water in six to nine minutes.

Belonio is an associate professor of agricultural engineering at the Central Philippine University in Iloilo City.

He intends to use the funds from the award to set up a demonstration center in Iloilo to disseminate free information and to provide training and technical advice about technologies he has developed.

Belonio joins nine other awardees from India, Jordan, Mexico, Paraguay, South Africa, the Philippines, the United Kingdom and the United States.
The 2008 Rolex Awards for Enterprise winners were chosen from nearly 1,500 applicants in 127 countries by an independent panel of scientists, educators, economists and other experts. /MP