Innovation Awards
October 26-27, 2023 | Suwon, South Korea
One of the most awaited components of the Asia-Pacific Housing Forum, the Innovation Awards
aims to inspire and empower individuals, organizations, and institutions to push the boundaries
of creativity and problem-solving in addressing the housing challenges faced by communities in
the region.
Get your copy of the APHF9 Innovation Awards 2023 Digital Booklet.
Announcing the Innovation Awards winners!
Over 3,100 applications. Countless inspiring and impactful solutions.
6 finalists (plus honorable mentions)!
3 winners!
Here are the winners for the 2023 Asia-Pacific Housing Forum Innovation Awards, and their outstanding initiatives, programs and solutions that are making a difference in the way communities improve the places they call home.
Winner – Policy: Public Sector Housing Solutions
The Manila Housing Program encompasses housing, disaster resilience, climate adaptation, and social integration, by emphasizing mixed-income communities with amenities, preventing poverty concentration, and ensuring sustainability. It engages residents as active partners, valuing their input, and making them co-creators in addressing their housing needs, ensuring that the solutions developed are genuinely responsive to their unique circumstances and aspirations.
Finalists and honorable mentions
Affordable Housing Program for Low Income Households with Non-Fixed Income City
- Indonesia
Livable and affordable housing for low-income households is one of the priority programs of the “Program Sejuta Rumah” – One Million Houses, by the Indonesian Government. It provides housing finance assistance to low-income households especially for those in informal markets, through Mortgage Linked Down Payment Assistance, known as “BP2BT.” This initiative provides access and opportunities for informal low-income households for home ownership, self-construction and self-improvement. It mobilizes banking capital towards improved housing construction quality, reducing the burden of government subsidized housing finance.
Winner – Program: Civil Society Housing Impact
The program started in 2016, following the eviction of Kampung Akuarium settlement residents. Through advocacy, organizing and other tactics, its residents, together with the Rujak Center for Urban Studies, the Jakarta City Poor People’s Network and the Urban Poor Consortium succeeded in pushing for the redevelopment the settlement. The redevelopment, completed in April 2023, uses co-design principles with designs that suit the needs of residents and adopt the unique economic activities.
Finalists and honorable mentions
The Housing & Living Conditions Improvement (HaLI) project seeks to improve the livelihoods of residents of urban-poor settlements in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Supported the Agence francaise de Développement (AFD) and Fondation Abbé Pierre (FAP), the project focuses on housing renovation & Infrastructure upgrading, community mobilization & empowerment, psycho-social support & counseling, economic empowerment, and research-action. It intervenes on different scales through an holistic approach in order to improve the living and housing conditions and advocate towards slum’s upgrading solutions rather than relocations or evictions.
Sustainable Enterprise Project (SEP): Promotion of environment friendly construction materials and technologies in coastal region of Bangladesh
- Bangladesh
Building Houses Using Cost Effective Technologies for the Poor
- India
Winner – Sheltertech: Private Sector Technology
Bandhu is an AI-driven tech platform that connects India’s blue-collar workers to jobs and affordable housing. It securitizes workers’ rental housing cash flows to unlock rental deposit loans and home improvement loans for low-income tenants and landlords, ultimately making the rural-to-urban migration process more equitable for 300 million Indians.
Finalists and honorable mentions
WeavAir provides a novel decision support platform that increases the resilience and affordability of housing, balancing environmental impact, social impact and investment financial return. By combining networks of sensors, satellite imagery and drone data capture systems as well as AI-powered software, the company supports real-time monitoring of the evolution of climate risks and ESG risks, reducing the cost and time required to make accurate housing development and resilience decisions by at least 10-fold. This allows for creating a digital twin of an asset and accurate assessment & prediction of the financial and ESG impact of housing development projects.
What’s new
A special award on Sustainable Consumption and Production (SCP), supported by EU
SWITCH-Asia, will recognize one of the award’s finalists that integrates sustainability considerations in
an exemplary way.
SCP emphasizes the provision of products and services and enabling of lifestyles
that minimize environmental impacts while maximizing social and economic benefits. These include
resource efficiency and building circularity, emissions reduction / energy solutions, and creating
climate resilient, sustainable cities.
Award Categories
Policy: Public Sector Housing Solutions
This award acknowledges transformative policies within the public sector that drive advancements in housing affordability and sustainability. It recognizes innovative proposals by various actors, including government agencies, non-governmental organizations, research institutions, and other stakeholders. It encourages the development and sharing of impactful policies that improve housing conditions and create sustainable communities.
Program: Civil Society Housing Impact
This award recognizes the
impactful contributions of civil society initiatives towards affordable housing solutions. It honors innovative programs and projects led by civil society entities that drive positive change in the affordable housing sector. This category highlights the crucial role of civil society in mobilizing communities, advocating for housing rights, and implementing grassroots initiatives to improve housing conditions and empower vulnerable populations.
Sheltertech: Private Sector Technology
This category focuses on scalable, sustainable and inclusive technologies with potential to significantly impact the housing deficit and improve living conditions for low-income households. It showcases innovative solutions developed by startups, scaleups institutions
and corporations.
Get a glimpse of previous Award Winners
2021 – Asia-Pacific Housing Forum 8
2019 – Asia-Pacific Housing Forum 7
2017 – Asia-Pacific Housing Forum 6