The School of Engineering at the University of Seville celebrates the final of the 1st Entrepreneurship Ideas Competition

A business proposal to transform leather industry waste into agricultural biostimulants is declared the winner

The Higher Technical School of Engineering (ETSi) at the University of Seville has held the final of the first Entrepreneurship Ideas Competition, ETSi-Emprende. This initiative, launched as part of a strategy to foster creativity, innovation, and an entrepreneurial culture among engineering students, has provided a significant boost in connecting university talent with the development of technological solutions that have a real impact on society.

During the closing ceremony, the finalist teams presented their projects to the jury through pitch-style presentations, defending their proposals based on the documentation submitted throughout the competition. The jury, appointed by the ETSi Directorate and composed of professors Antonio Miguel Sánchez Rojas, Guillermo Montero Fernández-Vivanco, and Juan Manuel González Ramírez, evaluated the projects based on the originality, creativity, and degree of innovation of the ideas, as well as their technical, scientific, and economic feasibility. The social impact of the initiatives and their alignment with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were also considered. Regarding the submitted materials, the jury assessed the clarity and coherence of the content, the originality of the presentation, the accessibility of the message to diverse audiences, and the formal correctness of the texts.

The winning project of the 1st ETSi Entrepreneurship Ideas Competition was the proposal by Alfonso Guiraúm Garrido, IberaminIberamin is a biostimulant for crops formulated from polluting waste from the leather industry. Using the circular economy, Iberamin solves the problem of waste management for tanneries, transforming it into a sustainable, high-value-added product that benefits agriculture and reduces environmental impact.

Meanwhile, the award for Best Sustainable Project has gone to BlueGuards TechnologiesLed by Carlos Cabrera Maldonado, Fabio Esmeralda Martínez, Carlos Rodríguez Castillo, and Guillermo Reina Paneque, their proposal focuses on developing off-grid vacuum evaporation modules that recover fresh water from lithium brines, thereby reducing pressure on natural resources in mining areas. Targeted at public and private companies in the sector, it offers a low-cost, modular, and renewable energy-based solution. In addition to being applicable to both traditional evaporation and direct liquid evaporation (DLE) processes, it represents a sustainable alternative aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals and the transition to a green economy.

Finally, the idea that has won the award for Best Innovative Project is CloudimaProposed by Ismael Martín Saldaña and Miguel Ángel Morales Jiménez, Cloudima is a platform that covers the entire cloud architecture lifecycle and allows users to design, configure, and deploy cloud architectures without requiring advanced programming knowledge. 

The competition, which followed an annual structure divided into two semifinals—one per semester—and a final, was open to both individual and team participation. Students could submit entrepreneurial projects with medium-term development potential, provided they were not already in the commercial phase or generating revenue. Furthermore, all submitted ideas had to be linked to some academic activity of the team, such as official degrees, continuing education, undergraduate or master's theses, doctoral dissertations, or lines of research.

After the presentations, the jury deliberated and selected the winning projects, recognizing those ideas that best integrated an innovative approach with a realistic vision and a commitment to the environment. The competition followed the same methodological approach as the University of Seville's Ideas Competition, enabling participating teams to continue their journey in other entrepreneurship competitions both within and outside the university setting.

Inspired by the model of leading international universities, the ETSi's 1st Entrepreneurship Ideas Competition has represented a firm step towards comprehensive engineering training, where entrepreneurial initiative is recognized as a key competence to face the technological and social challenges of the present and the future.