Two British companies are awarded for humanitarian work alongside Bill Gates and other global technology innovators…

Microsoft’s founder Bill Gates was the most high-profile laureate at this year’s Tech Museum Awards 2006, taking home the Global Humanitarian Award, but among the 25 winners chosen from 951 entries, two hailed from the UK – Riders for Health from Daventry in Northamptonshire and London-based Seawater Greenhouse.

Organised by the Tech Museum of Innovation in California’s Silicon Valley, the awards honour innovative ideas and technological developments that benefit humanity. Andrea and Barry Coleman (pictured here with Bill Gates) run Riders for Health, a non-profit company using satellite technology to manage vehicles that deliver healthcare to rural communities in Africa. From an initial fleet of 37, the company now manages more than 1,200 vehicles, which have reached 10.8 million people across rural Africa.

The second British winner is Charlie Paton of Seawater Greenhouse Ltd, which recreates the hydrological cycle using seawater within a greenhouse to produce fresh water and cool air, creating the optimum conditions for cultivating crops in arid coastal regions of the world.