Clean energy and health projects win the STARTUP LAB UAB entrepreneurship competition

UAB-movil, RadiatedEnergy, C4Growth and NutriAssistant, conceived by multidisciplinary groups of students, are the four winning projects of this competition. Participating teams were asked to solve a variety of challenges based on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).

10/05/2018

The UAB-Emprèn Programme and the School of Engineering offered the third edition of this initiative addressed to students and aimed at accelerating the creation of entrepreneurial technology-based projects to help solve the challenges in four categories: reducing inequalities; clean and affordable energy; peace, justice and solid institutions; and health and welfare. The competition finalised on 9 May with an event at the auditorium of the UAB Computer Vision Centre.

The participating teams worked during two months in the development of a project with the help of a UAB mentor and were given five minutes to explain to the jury the business model and technology prototype devised. Among the six finalists, the jury chose four winning projects.

One of the winning projects in the category of clean and affordable energy was UAB-movil, conceived by Paula Justicia (student of Business Management and Administration), Luis Fernández (student of the double degree in Computer Engineering + Telecommunications Systems) and Manuel Hadad (student of the Master's Degree in Biological and Environmental Engineering). The proposal offers a way to organise trips to and from the UAB campus with the aim of reducing contamination and sharing costs among users.

Another winning project in this category is RadiatedEnergy, conceived by Joan Miguel Bernabeu and Oriol Pons, students of Telecommunication Systems Engineering. The project focuses on the generation of clean energy based on an innovative idea which can have multiple applications in different sectors.

In the category of health and welfare, the jury chose C4Growth, devised by Desiré Rodríguez, student of Computer Engineering, and Marina Bailo, student of Business Management and Administration. The project consists of a platform which brings together parents, schools and catering companies with the aim of sharing information and improving the diets of children.

Also in the nutrition sector, NutriAssistant is the other winning project of the health and welfare category, developed by Oriol Punyed, student of the double degree in Computer Engineering + Telecommunication Electronic Engineering, and Fernanda Valentina Gamboa, student of Business Management and Administration. NutriAssistant is an application which analyses and improves food consumption patterns through the visual detection of food and the use of artificial intelligence.

The four winning groups will receive 750 euros from the Catalunya Emprèn programme; in addition to six months of assessment, laboratory use and training at UAB-Emprèn, and access to the Fablabs of the UAB with the aim of improving the prototype.

The jury was made up of Pere Condom, Director of the Catalunya Emprèn Programme of the Government of Catalonia; Sònia González, Director of the UAB-Emprèn programme; and Daniel Franco, Director of the UAB School of Engineering.

The ceremony held to finalise the STARTUP LAB UAB competition began with a speech by Condom, who praised the role of universities in fostering entrepreneurial ecosystems and pointed out the global leadership of the city of Barcelona in these types of ecosystems.