Nine projects that improve people’s lives in the final of the third edition of the Fundación Mapfre Awards for Social Innovation
• The nine selected projects offer genuine solutions to real problems in the fields of health, mobility and insurance innovation
• Three Spanish projects have won a place among the finalists: i4life, Pensium and Bastón Egara. All of them have the chance to win total prizemoney of €90,000 to help consolidate their ideas, as well as benefiting from mentoring and entrepreneurial support to reach potential investors
• The final takes place today and can be followed at: https://premiosinnovacion.fundacionmapfre.org
Social transformation and a global impact – these are the main attributes that characterise the nine social innovation projects that have qualified for the final of the awards promoted by Fundación Mapfre, whose objectives in this third edition of the competition are to improve health, sustainable mobility and innovation in insurance. The finalists, which this year come from Brazil, Ecuador, Spain and Peru, are determined to address major challenges such as improving people’s quality of life, reducing pollution in cities, supporting the elderly, among other groups, and dealing with the needs that have emerged as a result of the current health crisis.
Improvements in health and digital technology
The finalists in this category are: Instituto Laura Fresatto (Brazil), which has developed the Laura robot that uses artificial intelligence to send early warning signals to healthcare professionals about patients at risk of clinical deterioration, thus helping to reduce mortality and hospitalisations. Another standout project is Hope (Peru), a simple, low-cost automatic kit for analyzing DNA samples which identifies high-risk strains of HPV and allows the early detection of cervical cancer in women; and this group is rounded off by i4life (Spain), whose entrant is Pauto, a smart device that can be linked to a walking stick and emits visual and tactile stimuli to help increase the independence and confidence of people with Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease.
Innovation in insurance
The finalists in this category are Electrowave (Brazil), a simple low-cost, easy-toinstall platform that provides information on the quality of electrical power and thus helps to reduce the risk of electrical damage; Saving the planet you have innovative health insurance (Peru), a programme presented by
ASPAT that provides vulnerable people suffering from tuberculosis with the possibility of getting involved in the recycling of solid waste and obtaining health insurance from the funds raised and Pensium (Spain), a solution that helps dependent seniors to finance their healthcare in either their own home or private residences without the need to sell their home, get a mortgage or erode either their own or their family’s capital.
Sustainable mobility and road safety
There are three standout projects in this category: Guiaderodas (Brazil), a collaborative mobile app that allows people with disabilities and limited mobility to check the level of accessibility of a particular location; ClippMaaS (Ecuador), a multimodal platform that allows a customised mobility plan to be designed using all the available transport options in a particular city and Bastón Egara (Spain), an artificial intelligence handgrip that adapts to the walking sticks of people with impaired sight and helps them to avoid painful collisions with obstacles above waist height.
Innovators’ network
The participating projects are already part of Red Innova, an enterprising community of more than 60 start-ups, including participants from previous editions, who share their projects and experiences; the network has been particularly active during lockdown. In this respect, many of these social entrepreneurs have adapted their services to the needs generated by the pandemic, for example by producing healthcare material with 3D printers, offering free psychological therapy sessions, dealing with farmers and growers online and providing remote rehabilitation or monitoring services, among others.
Mentoring and exposure to investors
The nine finalists have received support, guidance and assistance in developing and communicating their proposals in the most effective way through coaching, and will have access to a PR plan to enhance the visibility of their projects to potential investors and funders. The winner in each category is eligible for an individual prize of €30,000, which will help them to develop their projects.
Final: today
A group of experts chosen by Fundación Mapfre and the IE University, our academic partner in these awards, will evaluate the projects and notify the names of the three winners, one per category, at an event being held today at 4.30pm, which can be followed online at https://premiosinnovacion.fundacionmapfre.org