The Dream Action that DSM launched this year inspired more than 1,100 DSM employees in 30 countries to put forward a total of over 700 ideas. A select number of these were nominated for the Dream Action Awards. The awards were announced by the judging committee on Wednesday October 2 at the DSM Head Office in Heerlen, the Netherlands, in the presence of Her Majesty Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands and all the nominees from all over the world. Commenting on the ideas, Mr Jan Zuidam, deputy chairman of the DSM Managing Board, said: “These DSM dreams originate from every corner of the world. Many employees have come up with wonderful ideas. The dreams of the nominees, and especially the winners, truly embody the theme of the action, ‘Sharing our dreams, sharing our talents’.”

The Dream Action was launched during a worldwide breakfast organized at the end of May 2002 to mark DSM’s 100th anniversary. All of DSM’s 22,000 employees worldwide were invited to use their talents for the benefit of the community in which they live and work. The philosophy behind this was that each and every DSM employee must have a dream about how the world around them might be made a better place and how they themselves might actively contribute to this. That is why DSM used its centennial to give its employees the opportunity to turn their dreams about a better world, a safer living environment or a cultural contribution to society into reality. The employees who submitted the best and most pioneering dreams were to receive a Dream Award, and DSM would make available time and money (in total EUR 5 million) to help realize their dreams. The winners (see below) will gratefully use these resources to make their dreams come true.

‘Give people clean water and you give them life.’

Alex Vrinzen and Paul Vergossen of DSM Research, Geleen (the Netherlands) certainly don't think that they can just come along and solve the problem of contaminated drinking water, but together with several employees from Membrane Application Technology in Geleen, they propose an interesting attempt. They came up with a simple, inexpensive solution by designing a straw containing an ultrafiltration membrane. The straw designed by Alex Vrinzen and Paul Vergossen should cost only a few euro cents.

The membranes used in the straw need only a slight pressure differential (as caused by for instance sucking at one end of the straw) to allow through clean water which is free of bacteria, viruses and parasites. Membrane filtration is a standard technique in biotechnological processes such as the separation of enzymes from an aqueous product solution.

‘Caring for those who have lost their dreams’

This too is a project in which the dreams and activities of many people come together: Hub van Maris, DSM Agro, Geleen (the Netherlands and the employees of DSM Eastern Europe, the DSM office in Moscow (Russia). Their dream is to improve the living conditions of the people – pensioners – who live in 32 homes for the elderly in Moscow. These homes, each with 600-1,000 beds, house large numbers of elderly people who are completely dependent on the help of others. How can these people be helped? There are two ways: firstly, by improving the management of these homes by setting up training programs for management and workers, and secondly by helping Russian companies to manufacture specific products which would be useful for these homes. The raw materials could be provided by DSM.

‘A drug to combat a devastating disease’

Among tropical diseases, malaria is one of the top killers; each year there are 400 million new patients. Every minute, or even less, a child somewhere dies or becomes brain damaged as a result of the disease. There are only few effective drugs available, since ‘chloroquine’ and its successor ‘fansidar’ are becoming less effective as a result of the malaria parasite’s increasing resistance. It will be years before new drugs, which are currently in development, will come on the market. ‘That’s why we must work on an alternative remedy that can be put on the market as soon as possible.’ That is the dream of Wolfgang Schiek and Thomas Zich of DSM Fine Chemicals, Linz (Austria), who asked DSM to help them setting up a study, which will be conducted by CRSN (Centre de Recherche en Santé de Nouna), into the possibilities of an anti-malaria research project to be carried out in Burkina Fasso, Africa, using methylene blue (MB), a medicine which was discovered more than a hundred years ago and which was the first man-made drug used in fighting malaria instead of the natural substance quinine.

As the projects of the other nominees are also considered very valuable, DSM  will enable these people, too, to realize their dreams.