The award ceremony took place at the Queen Sofía Museum in Madrid. Antonio Huertas, MAPFRE CEO and President of Fundación MAPFRE said “these are very prestigious awards, with the emphasis placed entirely on society and helping people, especially those who are the most vulnerable, or who need some additional assistance with inclusion. These awards are also an example of our commitment to sustainability and our business philosophy, and they make a contribution to enhancing personal growth and quality of life for millions of people. All of the award winners have put innovation into practice by thinking of others and the needs of society, and for this reason alone, they all deserve our thanks and recognition. Your success is a success for society too, because we will all benefit from your entrepreneurial ideas and dedication to helping others.”
The winners of the 6th edition of the Fundación MAPFRE Awards for Social Innovation, an initiative with the objective of improving people’s lives, by recognizing entrepreneurs whose projects have high value for society are the following:
Aceleradora Unoentrecienmil (Spain), a non‑pharmaceutical therapy space to provide physical exercise for children with cancer, installed at the La Paz University Hospital in Madrid; LUP (Spain), the first high-tech magnifying glass, independent from the eye, which captures images of texts and converts them into speech for automated reading; and This App Saves Lives (USA), a free app that rewards its users for staying off their phone while driving, by giving them discounts on leading brands.
Each of the winners has received an individual prize of €40,000 to help them further develop their projects, along with free consultation from EY thorough the EY Foundation, as a way to enhance their growth potential and efficiency. The winners will also become members of the Red Innova network, which promotes exchanges of expert knowledge and contributes to the social innovation ecosystem.
José Carnero, founder and CEO of Aceleradora Unoentrecienmil said “For children with cancer, a physical exercise program reduces hospitalization time and provides excellent respiratory, cardiovascular, and muscular benefits. We hope that by receiving this award, we can raise awareness about our therapy space at La Paz University Hospital, to encourage implementation of similar programs at other Spanish hospitals.”
Uxue Mancisidor, cofounder and CEO of LUP said “Thanks to this award, LUP has been recognized as a unique form of technology that can solve one of the major problems facing many people in our society each day: lack of accessibility for reading. From the very beginning of our project, our objective has been to give people with vision impairment more autonomy and independence, and now that we have won this award, we plan to continue investing in this idea.”
Ryan Frankel, founder and CEO of This App Saves Lives said “As our society becomes increasingly addicted to technology, initiatives like TASL are becoming more essential. Reducing traffic accidents is everyone’s responsibility, and this app in the form of a game gives its users additional motivation to stay off their phone while driving. Many people in the USA are already using TASL, and thanks to this award, we will be able to continue expanding our idea into the rest of the world.”
For this year’s award competition, there were 347 projects submitted by scientists, researchers, university students, and business schools, which represents 70% more entries than in the previous year. After 12 finalists were chosen, they presented their projects to a judging panel consisting of professionals representing the business world and a variety of social organizations. The 3 winners were then selected, based on criteria that included potential for social impact, technical and financial feasibility, and the skills and experience of the teams involved.
Fundación MAPFRE has announced that the 7th edition of its Awards for Social Innovation will be launched later this year in October. The terms and conditions for entry will be made available at www.fundacionmapfre.org.
