- BMW Group to Expand its Commitment to Intercultural Understanding

The UN Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC) and the BMW Group are pooling their expertise in the area of intercultural understanding in a joint initiative, the 'Award for Intercultural Innovation'. An agreement will be signed today at the UN's New York Headquarters as part of the 66^th UN General Assembly by President Jorge Sampaio, UN High Representative for the Alliance, and Konstanze Carreras, Senior Official for Corporate Social Responsibility of the BMW Group. The signature  will take place in the presence of ministers from over 130 countries and international organizations and the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-Moon.

The 'BMW Group Award for Intercultural Innovation in support of the Alliance of Civilizations under the auspices of the United Nations' is a unique award in its category, and represents a new kind of partnership between the private sector and the UN system. The partnership will select highly innovative projects that promote exchange and cross-cultural understanding, and hence make a vital contribution to safety and peace in societies around the world.The ten most outstanding projects in the area of intercultural understanding will be recognized for the first time in an award ceremony held during the fourth Annual UNAOC Forum in Doha (Qatar) in December 12^th of this year.

President Jorge Sampaio, High Representative for the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations, recently stated, "To succeed in bridging our world's growing divides, we need to launch cutting-edge programs that provide shared solutions to our common problems. Through the Award for Intercultural Innovation, both the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations and the BMW Group are fostering imagination and creativity to build collaboration among cultures."

"Together with the UN Alliance of Civilizations, we are now taking our efforts in this field to a new level," comments Harald Krüger, Member of the Board of Management of BMW AG and Patron of the Award for Intercultural Innovation. "The cooperation with UNAOC allows us to pool strengths, to reach even more people and to increase the efficiency of our international commitment."

Through its commitment to social entrepreneurship, with programs such as the BMW Group Award and numerous others, the BMW Group has promoted cooperative dialogue between different cultures for decades.

In addition to the award itself and the prize money that comes with it, the winners will be able to draw on support and consulting services from the 'World Intercultural Facility for Innovation' (WIFI), a program initiated by the UNAOC in cooperation with the BMW Group. The WIFI will help award-winning projects become more efficient and expand, as well as enable their transfer to other contexts or settings. The specific support that projects receive will depend on their individual demands.

Deadline for applications: 16 October 2011

Organizations can submit their proposals by 16 October 2011. Application forms are available for download at http://www.interculturalinnovation.org.

For additional information, please refer to http://www.interculturalinnovation.org.

For further queries, please contact:

BMW Group Corporate and Governmental Affairs
Konstanze Carreras, Corporate Social Responsibility
Konstanze.Carreras@bmw.de, phone: +49-89-382-52894

Jean-Christophe Bas, Senior Advisor
Strategic Developments and Partnerships, UNAOC
Phone: +1-212-457-1090, Fax: +1-212-457-4032

SOURCE BMW Group