Multichoice to air the Prestigious Earthshot Prize Awards Ceremony on Screens Across Africa

Press Release Thursday, 1st December 2022

THE MultiChoice Group, an official African media broadcast partner for The Earthshot Prize, will air the prestigious competition’s annual awards ceremony which will be filmed on Friday, 2 December at the MGM Music Hall in Boston, United States.

Award-winning broadcaster, podcaster and television presenter Clara Amfo returns for a second year to co-host the awards alongside actor, producer and director Daniel Dae Kim. The five Winners of The Earthshot Prize will be announced by a line-up of presenters including The Princess of Wales; Academy Award-Winning actor Rami Malek; actor, screenwriter and comedian Catherine O’Hara and actor and advocate Shailene Woodley. Each winning solution will be awarded £1 million in prize funding to help support and scale their innovations, with the potential to repair our planet.

The ceremony will also feature natural historian and Member of The Earthshot Prize Council, Sir David Attenborough and actor, producer and Member of The Earthshot Prize Council, Cate Blanchett. The Prince of Wales will deliver remarks at the end of the ceremony.

This year’s awards will feature unforgettable performances from Singer-Songwriter and activist Annie Lennox; Grammy award-winning Singer-Songwriter Billie Eilish accompanied by her brother and creative partner, FINNEAS; R&B duo Chloe x Halle and platinum selling artist and activist Ellie Goulding.

Each winning solution will be awarded £1 million in prize funding to help support and scale their innovations, with the potential to repair our planet.

“MultiChoice’s extensive footprint on the continent – reaching 22.1 million households across 50 countries – will ensure that Africans get front row viewing of one of the most important climate-change initiatives of our time,” said Imtiaz Patel, MultiChoice Group Executive Chairman.

The African entertainment company aims to not only educate communities on climate change with the partnership, but to also encourage innovators to pitch their solutions, inspire other corporates to join the fight against climate change and to motivate governments to prioritise climate change as part of their national agendas.

This year, finalists from Africa include Kenyan founder of Mukuru Clean Stoves, Charlot Magayi and Filip Lövström, CEO and co-founder of ROAM, an electric vehicle manufacturer also based in Kenya.

Growing up in Mukuru, one of Nairobi’s largest slums, Charlot sold charcoal for fuel. That charcoal was the cause of regular respiratory infections for her and her neighbours. Then, in 2012, her daughter was severely burnt by a charcoal-burning stove. Seeking a better solution, Charlot founded Mukuru Clean Stoves in 2017.

ROAM was founded in 2017 as a research project at a Swedish university, after Filip spotted an opportunity: electric vehicles made in Africa, designed for the African market. In Kenya, motorcycle taxis are the easiest and cheapest way to get around – but the ubiquitous Boda Bodas are major polluters. These motorcycles are among the highest CO2 emitting vehicles on the market. Electric alternatives are either unreliable, of poor quality or too expensive for most Kenyans.

The global environmental prize was founded by Prince William in 2020, and the following year, three African organizations were selected as finalists – Sanergy from Kenya, Reeddi Capsules from Nigeria and Pole Pole Foundation from the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Inspired by President John F. Kennedy’s “Moonshot” challenge that pioneered space travel in the 1960s, The Earthshot Prize is an ambitious global environmental prize which aims to discover and scale the best solutions to help repair our planet within the remainder of this decade.

Every year, The Earthshot Prize will find and reward solutions to five “Earthshot” goals – Protect and Restore Nature; Clean Our Air; Revive Our Oceans; Build A Waste-Free World and Fix Our Climate. These winning solutions will have the greatest impact on the biggest environmental challenges facing our planet and winners and finalists will have access to a global support network to scale their work.

The award ceremony will air on MultiChoice channels across Africa on Monday 5 December:
• Africa Magic Family (17:00 WAT)
• One Zed (18:00 CAT)
• Newzroom Afrika (21:00 CAT)
• Maisha Magic East (17:00 EAT)