Last Tuesday, 20 July, the Rector of the University, Xavier Gil, presented the awards at the first edition of the internal competition Driving Ideas Forward, an initiative designed and promoted by the Vice-Rector for Research, Innovation and Knowledge Transfer from the University with support from the Innovation Hub at UIC Barcelona.

This competition for innovative business ideas, for which the call was open to the university community during the month of May, was aimed at discovering and publicising business projects to encourage the creation of innovative companies.

In this first edition, a total of 27 entrepreneurial projects were presented, out of which there were three winners. All the ideas presented were evaluated by a jury consisting of UIC Barcelona lecturers and external members who valued the degree of creativity, entrepreneurship, innovation and business performance of the results of the research presented.

In this sense, the SetGo project by university students Pablo Pédigo (a student taking a bachelor’s degree in Advertising and Public Relations at UIC Barcelona), Albert Escolar (a student from the University of Barcelona) and Christian López (a student from Pompeu Fabra University) was awarded a prize in the specific category of “Best Business Idea in the Field of Cultural and Creative Industries”.

The SetGo project is an initiative that aims to develop a technology platform for travellers around the world so that they can record their experiences and disseminate them virtually so that others can view and share them. It is an immersive and interactive experience project at a global level.

In the general category of “Best Business Idea”, the Teknoss project won first prize. The idea was presented by a team of UIC Barcelona lecturers, Luis M. Delgado (a lecturer from the bachelor’s degree in Bioengineering), Federico Hernández-Alfaro (a lecturer from the degree in Dentistry), Román Pérez (a lecturer from the degree in Bioengineering) and Jordi Caballé (a lecturer from the degree in Dentistry). The project is from the field of dentistry and puts forward the creation of a biodegradable and resorbable mesh material for bone regeneration in the maxillary area.

The second prize in the general category of “Best Business Idea” was awarded to the Impulsum Project , by university students Antonella Ortega (a student from the bachelor’s degree in Bioengineering), María Blasco (a student from ESADE) and Manola Orlotti (a student from  IQS). The team created and presented a recycled biodegradable planter containing a bacterium that acts as a fertilizer. The idea behind this planter is for bulb plants to be able to grow in low nutrient soil or in dry climates.