The Engineering ETS of the University of Seville celebrates the final of the I Entrepreneurship Ideas Contest

A business proposal to transform residues of the leather industry into agricultural bio -stimulants is proclaimed winner

The Higher Technical School of Engineering (ETSI) of the University of Seville has held the final of the I Contest of Entrepreneurship Ideas, ETSI-Emprende. This initiative, launched as part of a strategy to promote creativity, innovation and entrepreneurial culture among engineering students, has meant an important impulse to bring university talent to the development of technological solutions with real impact on society.

During the closing ceremony, the finalist teams presented their projects before the jury through Pitch -type presentations, in which they defended their proposals relying on the documentation delivered throughout the contest. The jury, appointed by the address of the ETSI and composed of professors Antonio Miguel Sánchez Rojas, Guillermo Montero Fernández-Vivanco and Juan Manuel González Ramírez, valued the projects taking into account the originality, creativity and degree of innovation of ideas, as well as their technical, scientific and economic viability. The social impact of the initiatives and their alignment with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) was also considered. As for the materials delivered, the clarity and coherence of the contents, the originality in the presentation, the accessibility of the message for diverse audiences and the formal correction of the texts were evaluated.

The winning project of the I ETSI Entrepreneurship Ideas Contest has been for the proposal of Alfonso Guiraúm Garrido, Iberamin, a bio -stimulating for crops formulated from contaminating waste from the leather industry. Iberamin uses the circular economy to solve the problem of waste management to tanners, and transforms them into a sustainable product of high added value, benefiting agriculture and reducing the environmental impact.

For its part, the prize for the best sustainable project has fallen to Blueguards Technologies, led by Carlos Cabrera Maldonado, Fabio Esmeralda Martínez, Carlos Rodríguez Castillo and Guillermo Reina Paneque. Its proposal is based on the development of Evaporation Modules off-Grid that recover fresh water from lithium salmueros, thus reducing the pressure on natural sources in mining areas. Aimed at public and private companies in the sector, it offers a low cost, modular and based on renewable energy solution. In addition to being applicable to both traditional evaporation and DLE processes, it represents a sustainable alternative aligned with sustainable development objectives and the transition to a green economy.

Finally, the idea that has raised the Best Innovative Project award is Cloudima, proposed by Ismael Martín Saldaña and Miguel Ángel Morales Jiménez. Cloudima is a platform that has the entire life cycle of cloud architecture and allows you to design, configure and display cloud architectures without the need for advanced programming knowledge. 

The contest, which has followed an annual structure divided into two semifinals - one by four -month period - and a final, has been open to both individual and team participation. Students have been able to present entrepreneurship projects with medium -term development potential, provided they were no longer in commercial phase or generating billing. In addition, all the ideas presented should be linked to some academic activity of the team, such as official degrees, complementary training, end of degree or master's work, doctoral theses or lines of research.

After the exhibitions, the jury deliberated and proposed the winning projects, recognizing those ideas that best integrated the innovative approach with a realistic projection and a commitment to the environment. The contest was developed following the same methodological approach as the ideas contest of the University of Seville, favoring that participating teams can continue their way in other entrepreneurship competitions inside and outside the university field.

Inspired by the model of the main international universities, the I ETSI entrepreneurship ideas contest has represented a firm step towards an integral engineering training, where the entrepreneurial initiative is recognized as a key competence to face the technological and social challenges of the present and the future.