Mexico City, May 2024.- Know Hub Ignition 04, the acceleration program for science- and technology-based ventures, returns for its fourth edition in collaboration with Tec de Monterrey, with an investment of USD 140,000. This project, an initiative of Know Hub Chile, aims to increase the number and the national and international reach of technology businesses based on research and development (R&D) results generated by universities and research centers alike.
The call will be open to all of Latin America, and Mexico will take part for the first time, after Know Hub and Tec de Monterrey signed an agreement to seek resources for the development of this type of project. Applications will be open from May 29 to July 16, and teams can apply in two categories, general and dual innovation, competing for USD 140,000.
Developed in Chile by the Know Hub organization, this edition of the project has the collaboration of Tec de Monterrey, the support of Chile’s National Research and Development Agency (ANID), and Lockheed Martin as a partner company. The program runs in a hybrid format for teams from Chile and fully online for teams from the rest of Latin America.
Javier Ramírez, executive director of Know Hub Chile, notes that “across its different editions, Know Hub Ignition has proven to be an effective tool for turning science into innovation; in this new edition, in addition to Chile, we will use that knowledge, experience and networks to expand our search to Colombia and Mexico.”
For her part, Silvia Mora, associate director of Outreach, Market Strategy and Fund Management at Tec de Monterrey, emphasizes that joining the Know Hub Ignition 04 program is very important “because with this training, through our mentors, we will be able to identify and guide Latin American entrepreneurial talent so they can create their EBCTs and connect with the innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem in Mexico and our EBCTec-Bridge softlanding program.”
More than 140 teams have taken part in this program, which faces the challenge of consolidating a knowledge-based economy, a major task in which Know Hub Chile collaborates. Created in 2018 by the Corporación de Fomento de la Producción (Corfo), Know Hub Chile accelerates the early and global growth of science- and technology-based companies (EBCTs) through various initiatives, especially since 2019 with the Know Hub Ignition program.
Call for applications in Latin America
The program offers USD 140,000 to be shared among the winning teams and has two categories. The first covers all areas of science and technology, such as biotechnology, nanotechnology, robotics, software, synthetic biology, sensors and space technologies, among others. The second focuses on dual innovation, understood as the process through which science and technology act as a means of interaction between the Defense and civilian worlds, creating value in both contexts.
Launched in 2019, its first edition partnered with the University of California, Riverside, in the United States, and the business accelerator Imagine Lab. The following year it partnered with Cientech, the Regional Technology Transfer Office in the Colombian Caribbean; and in 2023, Lockheed Martin and CircularTec collaborated, with two categories: the first open to all types of EBCTs, and the second with dual innovation and circular economy verticals.
The call, which runs from May 29 to July 16, is open to multidisciplinary teams of entrepreneurs, researchers, undergraduate and graduate students, postdocs and other professionals linked to research and development institutions in countries across the region. Each team must have at least two members, and the ability to combine technical and business skills, as well as others relevant to the entrepreneurial challenge, will be valued.
Applications are open until July 16, 2024 at:
www.knowhub.cl/ignition04
Strengthening EBCTs
This initiative strengthens the capabilities of EBCTs with the support of mentors from Chile and Mexico, focusing on the value proposition and customer segment, to accelerate their early and global growth. In addition, the three winning teams will have an immersion phase in an ecosystem suited to their target market, business model and technology maturity level, which could be, for example, Mexico, Spain, France or the United States, among others, a location to be determined during the program.
Taking part gives EBCTs the chance to advance their Technology Readiness Levels, or TRL, that is, the maturity of their technologies. So says Ariel Crespo, CEO of Elementum, a team that developed a portable modular unit that upcycles plastic waste and turns it into an organic liquid, and a winner of the program’s second edition. “Throughout the preparation, one of the main takeaways was being able to go from roughly TRL 3, where we had some tests, to TRL 5. And today we are about to move to TRL 6. None of that would have been possible without the program,” he says.
In the case of MOV, a sonar-field sensory band that helps visually impaired people with spatial orientation and a winner of the second edition, CEO Silvana Herrera says they managed to go from a university startup to entering the market. They also came to understand early-stage entrepreneurship and how business works in a science- and technology-based company, as well as getting to know the user and their needs.
“When we joined we were at TRL 2, and the program helped us advance to TRL 7. We carried out validations with elderly visually impaired people, and it also helped us get to know both the national and international ecosystem. We were in contact with the Spanish National Organization of the Blind (ONCE) and other visual impairment institutes around the world to validate our device in a safe environment,” says the CEO of MOV.
Gabriel Sanllehi, CEO of Beloop, a circular analysis software tool that reduces environmental impact with new packaging systems and a 2023 winner, says they were able to pinpoint more precisely the problems they needed to tackle in order to have a faster roadmap. “The Customer Discovery process we worked on in Ignition was key to accelerating the development from a relatively general prototype to a much more specific product, with which we are now working on our first 10 validations,” he explains.
For Vasco León, commercial lead at Bioproc, an EBCT whose system supports gas and odor decontamination processes through a biological filtration unit with an automatic electrochemical biofilter system, and a 2023 winner, taking part allowed them to sharpen the focus of their solution, that is, their customer segment. “We were able to set short- and medium-term goals for our technology packaging and market entry, thanks to the guidance of our national and international mentors. It helped us bring our technology to market, advance to TRL 7, and design more scalable models with more value for our customers,” he highlights.
