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Build up Nepal won $250,000 from University of Utah's Wilkes Climate Center Climate Launch Prize.

The company creates eco-friendly bricks, reducing CO2 emissions from making traditional bricks by 75% to 80% in Nepal.

The prize money will help expand Build up Nepal's operations, empowering local entrepreneurs to build earthquake-resilient homes.

SALT LAKE CITY — Bjorn Soderberg has lived in Nepal for the past 25 years and was there when a magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck near Kathmandu in April 2015, killing nearly 9,000 people and destroying about 800,000 homes.

"At that point, me and my wife, we went out to the villages to try to help rebuild — and we realized that the problem here is vast because poor families can't really afford earthquake-resistant houses," Soderber

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