Campus Iberus presents the 8th edition of the Entrepreneurship Awards sponsored by Exolum
THE PROPOSALS BY NEWEX AND MAXIMILIANA ARE THE WINNERS IN THE “BUSINESS IDEA” AND THE “INNOVATIVE COMPANY” CATEGORY, RESPECTIVELY, AND ALMOTECH HAS WON
THE AWARD FOR THE BEST SOLUTION TO THE CHALLENGE PROPOSED BY EXOLUM.
LOGROÑO, 10 DECEMBER 2021. The proposals submitted by NEWEX, in the “Business Ideas” category, and the company MAXIMILIANA, in the “Innovative Company” category, are the
winners of the eighth edition of the Iberus-Exolum Entrepreneurship awards, sponsored by Exolum (formerly known as CLH).
The awards were presented at a ceremony held in Zaragoza, which will also be available via the Campus Iberus YouTube channel (www.youtube.com/CampusIberus), after the finalists had
presented their projects to the panel. A total of 20 proposals were submitted in this edition, covering a wide range of sectors, such as science, technology, society or sports.
During the award ceremony, Javier Alonso, Exolum’s Global HSSE & Technology Lead, encouraged the participants “to reinvent themselves, to be innovative and to work with the same
passion as when they were starting out.” Furthermore, Javier Alonso stressed the importance of continued support for start-ups as “they are key players in disruptive changes within the business ecosystem, lead innovation and bring it closer to big companies, thus driving their digitalisation.”
The ceremony was hosted by the rector of the University of Zaragoza and current president of the Campus Iberus Consortium, José Antonio Mayoral, who thanked Campus Iberus and Exolum
for organising the awards and highlighted the entrepreneurship activity in the Ebro Valley and the importance of the support received from the four universities belonging to the International
Excellence Campus of the Ebro Valley.
Exolum and Campus Iberus have been cooperating, as part of the company’s entrepreneurship support policy, for eight years now in this programme, which aims to contribute to the development of innovative projects and promote the creation of new businesses and jobs in the communities where the company is present.
Exolum has signed similar agreements with other organisations to foster entrepreneurship, such as the Institute for Business Competitiveness of Castilla y León (ICE) and the Promotion Institute of the Region of Murcia.
WINNING PROJECTS
The winner of the “Business Ideas” category is the project presented by Alejandro Cerón from Lleida University, which offers an alternative to the traditional neoprene wetsuit made from highlypollutant oil-derived materials, consisting of a wetsuit made from natural rubber with certified origin and sustainability, thus reducing CO2 emissions by over 95% per hour in the manufacturing process.
This category aims to foster entrepreneurship by promoting the creation of new businesses by students and graduates of the universities belonging to Campus Iberus. Any entrepreneur who has developed a business idea can participate in it. The winner in this category receives 4,000 euros.
As for the “Innovative Company” category, the winner was MAXIMILIANA, a project presented by Jorge Terreu Serrano from the University of Zaragoza. His company has developed a mobile
phone for the elderly and the technologically challenged that works completely on its own without requiring any intervention from the user. It has the same functions and features of a smartphone and it works autonomously. Users’ family members can control the features of the phone via a web platform owned by the company by paying a monthly subscription.
This category aims to promote entrepreneurship by contributing to the recognition and strengthening of incorporated companies, regardless of their legal form and purpose, in the regions where they are based. The winner in this category receives 7,000 euros.
As a new feature, in this 8th edition, the former award for the “Best online dissemination” has been replaced with an award for the best solution to the innovation challenges proposed by the
sponsoring company, aimed at finding solutions to current challenges faced by large companies and endowed with a prize amounting to 2,000 euros. The Exolum Ventures team proposed three challenges, from which candidates could choose one and had to explain how their project or company would provide a solution for it:
Challenge 1: Technological developments and business models for low-carbon mobility
Challenge 2: Technological developments and business models for conversion of waste into energy and raw materials
Challenge 3: Technology and business models in water production, treatment, distribution and supply
The team from Almotech, represented by Andoni Cid from the Public University of Navarre, was named the winner in this additional category. It offers a solution for oil-polluted water by producing a small appliance that is able to automatically and easily transform vegetable oil used in the kitchen into different kinds of stable liquid soap (laundry detergent, hand soap, etc.) for the user.
CAMPUS IBERUS IN 2021. Campus Iberus is a strategic alliance of the public universities in the central Ebro valley (La Rioja, Lleida, the Public University of Navarre and Zaragoza). It has
approximately 58,000 undergraduates on 150 degree courses and 3,200 postgraduate students pursuing 82 doctoral degrees. The academic offering is completed with 154 official master’s
programmes and 181 own degree programmes. The workforce totals 6,300 teaching and research staff (TRS) members and 3,000 administrative and service staff (ASS) members. This
year marks the tenth anniversary of Campus Iberus