• More than 600 entrepreneurs have participated in the first edition of the Entrepreneurship Award
   

The Ideas X entrepreneurship program has closed its first edition with a great success: more than 600 students with nearly 250 projects and representing 48 universities throughout the country.

The award, announced through Santander X, recognizes the best ideas that help solve the problems faced by society and companies in their daily lives.

The 10 winning projects have received 5 million pesos each, which they will be able to use to continue developing their project, in addition to having a follow-up program and accompaniment by the bank for 3 months.

Getting here has not been an easy task, contestants have competed with 50 other projects and have had to overcome the different challenges posed at each stage of the award. After receiving online training with entrepreneurship capsules, 40 ideas were selected that entered the next phase by participating in a Bootcamp and receiving feedback from mentors and tutors.

Only the top 20 went on to the final, each team receiving 1 million pesos for its prototypes and participating in an acceleration process along with specialists in their sector.

After facing a jury made up of bank executives, the 10 winners of the first edition of Ideas X were selected. We can find from technological training workshops for the elderly to a mechanical system that transforms the movement of the vehicle into electrical energy, passing through a kinesthetic tool to maintain and improve muscle strength.

Rodrigo Machuca, manager of Santander Universities Chile, stressed that "Banco Santander's mission is to support people, businesses and society. Ideas X is a real contribution, we ground the entrepreneurial ideas of young people, so that they become more tangible. This is the first edition and it was a surprise to have 600 young people participating. We are very happy with the results and of course we will continue to support this initiative.

Click here to see the video of the participants in the first edition of Ideas X.

Ideas X is part of the global platform of entrepreneurship, Santander X, one of Banco Santander's university entrepreneurship initiatives to promote high-impact projects, connecting entrepreneurs from all over the world who want to contribute to socio-economic progress and supporting the universities' commitment to entrepreneurship.

Santander X will make this possible by connecting entrepreneurial focuses from all over the world, giving international visibility, and facilitating the scalability of projects, going from the local scope to the global one. This will be done by articulating the offer of the diverse actors of the ecosystem in order to help both technological and traditional entrepreneurs to connect with the 3 fundamental resources for a new business; talent, clients and financing.

About Santander Universities                        

Banco Santander is the only European bank included in the 'Change the World' 2018 ranking of companies that are helping to improve the world (Fortune magazine) due to its positive impact on society, among other criteria.

Its firm commitment to Higher Education, which is materialised through Santander Universities, also distinguished it as the company that invests the most in Education in the world (Varkey Report / UNESCO / Fortune 500). This has become one of its hallmarks, with 1,200 collaboration agreements with universities and institutions in more than 20 countries, more than 1,700 million euros allocated to academic initiatives since 2002 and more than 73,000 scholarships and university aid granted in 2018 in order to contribute to the progress of individuals, companies and society (www.santander.com/universidades).

In Chile, the bank has 52 collaboration agreements with universities and institutions throughout the country, supporting initiatives related to Santander Scholarship, entrepreneurship and research programs.