GelWear, an Ecuadorian startup created by Carolina Serrano (Biomedical Engineer), Victoria Suárez (Biomedicine student), Daniela Serrano (Nanotechnology student) and David Clavijo (Biomedical Engineer), from Yachay Tech, seeks to produce eco-friendly diapers and has brought Ecuador’s name to the forefront for being one of the 10 winning projects of the Hult Prize global competition.
The proposal was born in 2019, and it consisted of developing reusable diapers with a completely biodegradable changeable membrane or cover, made from sugar cane waste.
Each year, the Hult Prize organization provides a capital of $ 1 million to promote social impact companies focused on meeting the Sustainable Development Goals.
In 2020, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the Organization decided to deliver a capital of $ 100,000 dollars to 10 companies out of the 30 finalists, to boost its business model. A global team of experts and judges evaluated the finalists.
According to Serrano, “After winning the On Campus at Yachay Tech and the Regionals in Tunisia (April 2019), we were part of the 30 finalists of more than 300 thousand competitors worldwide. For two months we were part of the Global Accelerator Hult Prize where we demonstrated the advances of GelWear, traction, business model, innovation, etc. On March 15, the 10 winners were announced and GelWear is part of this select group and the only team from Ecuador and South America to win this award”.
“We had to cope with the pandemic while participating in the competition at the same time, now, the satisfaction of having won is even greater when we see the adversities we’ve overcome,” Carolina added.
The award ceremony will be online, “we hope to be able to travel to London in August, to finally meet the entire Hult Prize organization,” she said.
The award will be invested primarily in machinery, research, development and marketing. “Our goal is to use this money to consolidate a company that will generate around 100 new jobs in the coming years,” Serrano said.
In addition, she highlighted that: “Yachay Tech took part of each step we took, from the work in the laboratory to create our prototype, tutorials with the professors to be able to develop our business model, to the promotional videos to send to the global final”.
As far as the recommendations for the teams that are currently participating in the competition, Carolina pointed out that: “it is necessary to study how the business models, finance and management of companies work. Hult Prize is a capital investment for your business. It is very important to go from scientific language to business language in order to attract judges and investors”.
Yachay Tech University congratulates the team for this achievement, and reinforces its commitment to train students with great scientific and investigative capacity who generate knowledge through technological means for practical, useful and relevant applications for the development of the country.
