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One month from today, 11 Chilean entrepreneurs and professionals will arrive in Pittsburgh for Idea Foundry’s Innovation Bridge Program.

These men and women come from throughout Chile’s northern and southern regions as well as the capital city of Santiago. They were chosen for this program by our team because of their work implementing innovation to solve societal and environmental problems in Chile, and in some cases internationally, in sectors ranging from cybersecurity, energy efficiency, education technology and more. Their passion for impact was clear from the beginning. Daniel Waintrub, CCO and Partner for WenuWork, a platform which monitors and analyzes energy consumption, described the critical need for environmental innovation: “What Wenu has given me is an opportunity to create a solution from scratch that actually helps solve what I think is the most critical issue our planet faces nowadays. This is why I do what I do. We are living critical times and there’s no time to waste.”

Lucas Espinoza, Co-Founder of Kimche, an AI platform utilized in schools throughout Chile, described his passion for his work: “For me education is the most important thing in life, in Chile and America there are many educational gaps especially for economic issues, I want all children to have the same opportunities no matter where they are born.”

In addition to their already impressive portfolio of work, what sets this group apart is their interest in international collaboration to generate wider impact. For example, Rocio Alvial, who works as a Scientific Advisor for the Environmental Court serving all of Southern Chile describes the connections she hopes to make from the program: “Participating in the Idea Foundry Pittsburgh program can help me to propose more productive ways in which to address environmental conflicts and propose more accurate remediation measures by generating partnerships with professionals and innovators from Chile and the US.” These participants share Idea Foundry’s vision that collaboration can strengthen their efforts. Cristobal Allel, CEO of Nodos Campesinos, which works to improve efficiency and transparency for small farmers through digital solutions, affirms, “if there is an international instance for innovation, collaboration, and sharing ideas, I want to be there.”

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Meet the Participants:

Cristobal Allel - CEO of Nodos Campesinos, a company dedicated to building efficiency and fairness into the food supply chain and offering digital solutions to small farmers in Chile.‍

Rocio Carolina Alvial - Scientific Advisor of the Tercer Tribunal Ambiental, offering remediation strategies utilizing innovation to solve challenges brought to the Environmental Court serving all of Southern Chile.

Ignacio Espinoza - Owner and Business Development Manager of El Pinal Food Service offering and developing vegan products throughout Central Chile since 2006.

Lucas Espinoza - Co-Founder of Kimche, an early warning system that anticipates school risk cases through big data and machine learning utilized in schools throughout Central Chile.

Camilo Naranjo - Founder of Limpio Total, a cleaning company focused on utilizing environmental innovation and promoting career development for its employees, serving 80 facilities in Chile.

Cintya Gajardo - General Manager of Oleaje, a company designing a product which safely removes parasites from water without the use of chemicals.

Rosina Ordoqui - CEO of Hacknoid, a platform which analyzes and identifies cybersecurity threats for companies, large and small.

Natalia Rodriguez - Co-Founder of LabNettings, a platform for R&D organization and collaboration to encourage the sharing of equipment, space, and knowledge between organizations.

Kenneth Standen- International Affairs and Project Engineer of Zyght, a collaborative platform for risk management in the mining industry as well as other high-risk industries.

Felipe Valdivia - Founder and CEO of EnerSu  which brings off- and on-grid energy systems to rural areas in the north of Chile with otherwise limited access.

Daniel Waintrub - Partner and CCO of WenuWork  an IoT technology that enables real time monitoring of the electrical consumption within any type of facility.

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