Youth tackling world ills get cash through Clinton

Former U.S. President Bill Clinton delivers his keynote speech during an opening ceremony of the 3rd C40 Large Cities Climate Summit Seoul 2009 in Seoul May 19, 2009.

NEW YORK (Reuters Life!) - A soccer ball that absorbs energy to light a home and a radio program to help Nigerian farmers are among 78 projects sharing in $400,000 funding through former U.S. President Bill Clinton's youth humanitarian program.

The Clinton Global Initiative University announced the winners on Friday for the projects aimed at improving communities around the world.

Clinton said the funding "will help innovative college students make a tremendous difference in the world" and that he hoped they would "inspire others to take action."

Another winning program will allow people in Ghana and Nigeria to text message drug companies to check that their medication is not counterfeit.

The Wal-Mart Foundation and Pat Tillman Foundation, created to honor U.S. football player Pat Tillman after he was killed while serving in Afghanistan in 2004, are providing the grants for the projects.

Like the four-year-old Clinton Global Initiative, the CGI U encourages students to take real steps toward tackling global education, energy and climate change, global health, peace and human rights, and poverty alleviation.

The initiative was born out of Clinton's frustration while president from 1993 to 2001 at attending conferences that were more talk than action. The annual New York gathering, which started in 2005, attracts heads of state, celebrities, business leaders and humanitarians. The CGI U launched in 2007.

Harvard University student Jessica Lin and her team of students will receive $1,500 to buy soccer balls and internal parts for their "sOccket" project -- a soccer ball that harnesses the energy of being kicked around during a game for later use in a home.

In Cleveland, Ohio, Case Western Reserve University student Bryan Mauk's will receive $10,000 for "The Metanoia Project," which will buy, repair and sell foreclosed homes and use the proceeds to fund a drop-in center for the city's homeless.

Another $10,000 is going to Cornell University students Daniela Ochoa Gonzalez and Mitchell Harrison for their waste management program in Morelia, Mexico, which allows residents to trade recyclable materials for fresh, local produce.

The grant winners were chosen from more than 1,000 applications worldwide. Along with these projects, 1,700 pledges of action to tackle the world's problems have been made by students at www.cgiu.org.

(Editing by Mark Egan and Patricia Reaney)