THE WINNERS
The Simone Awards celebrate and support women committed to making a difference in the world around them. Started in 2018 by Famille Carabello-Baum and Château de Pommard, the awards are open to any women-run cause in any country or sector around the world, focused on positive outcomes. Candidates are nominated by the public, and winners are selected each January by the Simone Awards Board. Selection criteria include the uniqueness, reach, and impact of each cause. Recipients are featured in our Simone campaign reaching an audience of more than 100,000 global consumers and influencers in more than 80 countries. 10% of the annual profits from the sale of Simone, Château de Pommard’s top cuvée, are donated to the winners’ causes.
2023 RECIPIENTS
CLAIRE NOUVIAN
BLOOM
FRANCE
Fight the destruction of the ocean, the climate, and livelihoods
Recognized for her tireless advocacy in marine conservation, Claire Nouvian has dedicated her life to protecting the world’s oceans and marine biodiversity.
As the founder of BLOOM, an organization committed to ending destructive fishing practices and promoting sustainable fisheries management, Claire has been instrumental in raising awareness about the importance of preserving marine ecosystems.
Through innovative campaigns, scientific research, and policy advocacy, she continues to inspire action and drive positive change in the fight against overfishing and habitat destruction.
Offering complimentary education to under-resourced schools
Janna Kretzmar is celebrated for her incredible work in education and community development through the Earth Child Project.
By empowering children and educators in underserved communities in South Africa, Janna has created opportunities for a holistic approach to learning, environmental awareness, and personal growth.
Through programs focused on sustainability, wellness, and creative expression, Earth Child Project is nurturing a generation of young leaders who are equipped to build a more sustainable future for themselves and their communities.
2022 RECIPIENTS
VICTORIA JAMES, CYNTHIA CHENG & AMY ZHOU
Wine empowered
united states
Helping women make their way in the wine world
Victoria, Amy and Cynthia, three dynamic sommeliers, are seeking to change the industry’s face through professional growth and empowerment.
Founded in 2018, Wine Empowered’s mission is to inspire professional growth and empower women and minorities in the hospitality industry to diversify leadership roles in the industry.
Several initiatives are implemented:
– Tuition-free wine education by providing wine classes to students of all levels and all backgrounds.
– Mentoring services, and access to a wider network of sommeliers and hospitality professionals.
Diane Dupré la Tour
LES PETITES CANTINES
FRANCE
Food, the key ingredient to creating a social support network
Diane Dupré la Tour, a 42 year old former finance journalist, is the co-founder of Les Petites Cantines, a network of restaurants that specialize in sustainable food and are open to everyone. Diane’s starting point was the realization that food is the key to facilitating encounters and creating social links. It’s a major source of resilience, because food not only satisfies physical needs, but also emotional and relational ones.
That’s how the first “Petite Cantine” saw the light of day in Lyon, and the collective is now present in several French cities.
To promote affordability, each guest decides the price to pay for the meal. The food is sourced sustainably, using organic, and local products. The cooking is also collaborative. Guests from all generations and all backgrounds gather around the table to share a moment together.
DR DEBORAH MCCAULEY
VIEW
United States
Protect endangered wildlife
Dr. Deborah McCauley is the founder of VIEW (Veterinary Initiative for Endangered Wildlife), a non-profit organization dedicated to the conservation of threatened species by tackling the health threats that animals face in their native habitats.
The VIEW association is the only one in the world to intervene on the health aspect to protect wildlife, and carries out actions in North America, Africa and Asia.
Deborah creates sustainable wildlife conservation programs, and work with the local communities to empower them to include wildlife health into their own initiatives.
2021 RECIPIENTS
EMILY PENN
EXXPEDITION
UNITED KINGDOM
All-female Voyages across the World
eXXpedition – led by ocean advocate and skipper Emily Penn – was founded in 2014 to shift the way people feel, think and act by building a global network of multidisciplinary women who can contribute to world-class scientific studies, explore solutions, and use their unique skill sets to tackle the problem from all angles.
All eXXpedition voyages, at sea and onshore through a ‘Virtual Voyage’ program, have three main goals:
– Contribute to important scientific research projects.
– Shift perceptions on the real problem of plastic pollution and educate so that people can better understand the challenge of micro-plastics.
– Provide an experience, platform and learning opportunity for amazing multidisciplinary crews.
After completing their voyage, each guest crew joins the thriving network of eXXpedition ambassadors, taking the message of ocean plastic and achievable actions back to their own communities
JULIA CONEY
BLACK WINE PROFESSIONALS
UNITED STATES
Empowering Diversity in the Wine Industry
Julia Coney created Black Wine Professionals in June 2020, after the killing of George Floyd and the new anti-racism movement that happened in the United States. She strongly believes that empowering diversity can lead to positive ripple effects – including financial gains – throughout wine’s global ecosystem.
Black Wine Professionals is a database listing professionals in the wine indutry. In less than a year, the database has more than 200 members and have been utilized by more than 50 companies within the wine and hospitality industry. The organization also works with various wine brands for scholarships for wine education and continuing education courses.
Julia is a wine journalist and contributing editor at VinePair. Her impact with Black Wine Professionals will be her legacy. Julia was recognized as ‘Social Visionary of the Year 2020’ by Wine Enthusiast.
LUCIE BASCH
TOO GOOD TO GO
FRANCE
Leading the Fight Against Food Waste
Too Good To Go is the leading application for fighting food waste in France. The app connects local retailers with customers to save unsold items at closing time. This concept benefits everyone and makes everyone an actor in the fight against food waste. Too Good To Go is available throughout France and in eight other countries.
In total, more than 900,000 meals have been saved in a year and a half, just in France.
Too Good To Go is also rolling out awareness campaigns on food waste, throughout France, with a strong focus in elementary schools.
Lucie Basch, a Central engineer, founded Too Good To Go in 2016 with the ambition to reinvent the business and consumption patterns. When launching Too Good To Go, Lucie faced a double challenge: fight food waste and create a new kind of business model. “Impacting society” and “collaboration is the new competition” are her two leitmotivs. “I’ve always thought that horizontal power can have a huge impact. It’s the sum of all our little actions that creates the change on a large scale,” she says.
2020 RECIPIENTS
LINDSEY NEFESH-CLARKE
WOMEN'S WORLDWIDE WEB (W4)
UNITED STATES
Empowering women around the world
Women’s WorldWide Web (W4) is an online crowdfunding platform aiming to promote girls’ and women’s empowerment worldwide, in cities and in rural areas, in both developing and developed countries.
Harnessing the power of digital connection, W4 works to protect girls’ and women’s human rights and to promote their empowerment.
Collaboratively, W4’s team works to ensure that girls and women everywhere have access to education, healthcare, economic opportunities, the exercise of their rights, and political participation—all of which benefit girls and women and their families and communities. W4 also strives to ensure that girls and women across the globe have equal opportunity to be digitally connected and can access the life-enhancing potential of Information and Communication Technologies.
W4 is open to everyone. Each one of us is invited to connect, get involved and co-create opportunities for girls and women to thrive—along with their families and communities—in all parts of the world.
CHRISTINE JANIN
À CHACUN SON EVEREST !
CHAMONIX, FRANCE
Regenerating the Body and the Soul
À Chacun Son Everest ! is an Association founded in 1994 by Christine Janin, a mountaineer doctor and the first woman ever to climb Mount Everest and to go the North Pole.
The association is dedicated to helping children suffering from leukemia or cancer and women suffering from breast cancer by guiding them in the post-disease phase, putting together trips to the mountains for people in recovery.
À Chacun Son Everest ! draws on the powerful symbolic parallel between the difficulty of ascending a summit and that of the path to recovery.
Stays are supervised by a team of volunteers (carers, coaches, organizers for children, etc.) and adapted according to the participants (children or women) and their different physical abilities. Children and women are welcomed to a warm Chamonix home for a week.
SHELBY MEYERS
LANDSCAPE FOR HUMANITY
OREGON, ÉTATS-UNIS
Designing landscape outputs for people in need
Landscape For Humanity works with landscape as the fundamental framework for creating spatial changes that support social and environmental justice through design, research and real-world projects.
The goal is to increase self-sufficiency through Food-Energy-Water (FEW) by providing flexible solar design, creating edible landscapes, creating a sustainable and portable water supply and measuring the environmental, social, and economic performance of the FEW approach.
The Landscape For Humanity (L4H) Lab at the University of Oregon works closely with the L4H non-profit and community partners. This teamwork allows to effectively implement design research and education on the ground and to support the local community to manage the landscape system. Community and student engagement is central to the entire design and implementation process. It provides essential feedback to revise the direction of the vision, research and pedagogy.
Defender of the Oceans Blue
Our blue planet may be divided by continents, but it is united by oceans. I Am Water’s mission is to ignite a movement of blue minds across the planet, to facilitate physical and emotional connections to the aquatic environment, to build an understanding of the interdependence of healthy humans and healthy oceans and to influence behaviors to protect our global seas.
The foundation provides opportunities to engage and educate ocean-users in order to understand their personal opportunity to protect the planet. Hanli Prinsloo, South African freediving champion and conservationist, feels especially passionate about working with underprivileged coastal communities where, despite living walking distance to the shoreline, she finds many young people who have never seen the world just beneath the waves.
Since 2010, Hanli and her team have safely introduced 1,300+ youth from disadvantaged coastal communities to their local ocean ecosystems, catalyzing an emotional connection.
Raison d'art
montreal, canada
Resolving Our Differences Through Art
Raison d’art is a non-profit organization that is tapping into the artist in each of us to provide a medium for communication, intervention, and violence prevention. Cutting-edge technology is utilized to bring people together and create large-scale, collaborative works impacting the very core of how we interact as humans.
Nathalie Hazan is a psychotherapist, social entrepreneur and artist. Her love for art and her commitment to societal change have taken her to France, Switzerland, Israel, Hong Kong and the United States executing collaborative works of art to facilitate conflict resolution and violence prevention. By tapping our cerativity, art creates human connections and interactions that can become the driving forces of change. Participants find positive progress towards sustainable change.
Nathalie is especially passionate about inner-city schools, and more than 30 elementary, schools, high schools and universities have benefitted from more open communication through Raison d’Art.
Marin Academy RESEARCH COLLABORATIVE
OREGON, ÉTATS-UNIS
Can Young Minds Save Humanity?
Stori Oates believes the diversity and energy of young minds is the solution to many of our pressing global problems. Her high school level research collaborative in Marin County, CA enables high school students to identify their particular skills and interests and then to partner with the larger scientific community to pursue a research project of their own design with the goal of publishing their research in industry scientific journals.
Students generate a novel research question, conduct a rigorous literature review, collaborate with content-area experts, develop hypotheses, collect and analyze data, and learn how to publicly present, as well as, publish their work. Connecting with the local scientific community makes it possible for students to develop the professional skills necessary for a successful scientific career.
Stori’s young researchers have published studies on the application of the nano-carbon material graphene in super capacitors, the implications of sea level rise on vulnerable assets and potential adaptations, and an analysis of different protein sources available to yellow mealworms during biodegradation of polystyrene to increase lifespan and consumption rates. Wow!
