- 483 entrepreneurs participated with a total of 207 initiatives.
- The finalists must submit their entrepreneurship initiatives to the jury chaired by professor and writer Leopoldo Abadía in the coming days.
- The award ceremony will be on 1 March at one of the LOOM Madrid spaces.
The jury of the +50 Emprende Awards, the most important entrepreneurship event for senior talent in Spain, has selected the ten finalist projects in its 3rd edition. 483 entrepreneurs, with an average age of 55, submitted a total of 207 initiatives. In the coming days, the finalists must present their projects to the jury chaired by professor and writer Leopoldo Abadía and formed by professionals and experts in the field of entrepreneurship and business ideas.
The +50 Emprende Awards are an initiative by Generación SAVIA, a joint project between the Endesa Foundation project and the Máshumano Foundation, with which they have been promoting senior talent and entrepreneurship among this group for more than three years, and the production company 02:59 Films. The awards, which have a budget of €30,000 (€18,000 in prize money and €12,000 in advisory services) will be presented on 1 March at an event to be held in one of the LOOM Madrid coworking spaces.
The profile of applicants at this third edition showed the candidates to be similar in terms of gender: 50.9% male and 49.1% female. Regarding the stage of the projects, 62% are "nascent" entrepreneurs, that is, they are already taking the first steps to start their projects.
The type of projects presented are widely diverse. Twenty initiatives are linked to technology, with patents and utility models designed and registered by their developers. This 3rd edition has seen more projects focused on products than on services, especially in sectors such as: trade (29%); manufacturing of different items such as clothing, footwear and accessories (17 per cent); advisory services (14%); and arts-related services, such as painting, sculpture and crafts (11.3%).
The general director of the Endesa Foundation, Javier Blanco, underlined "the enormous value, the great creativity and the immense talent that entrepreneurs and professionals who have participated in the 3rd Edition of the +50 Emprende Awards can contribute".
The director of the +50 Emprende Awards, Fernando Lallana, stressed the need to "widen the channels of social and professional participation to make the most of all the knowledge amassed by the group of senior workers".
The prize money totals €18,000 in cash and €12,000 in advisory services for senior entrepreneurs. First prize will receive €10,000, second prize €5,000 and third prize €3,000. In addition to these amounts, the +50 Emprende Awards feature a range of in-kind awards granted by its partners. The three winning projects will be awarded permanent stands in the LOOM spaces, legal advisory services in protecting innovation offered by Arrabe Integra, and on-line training to consolidate business plans offered by 50 Pro. Two special mentions will be given to different associations and movements that support different groups.
This year the Awards resumed their physical tour of Spanish cities, including Madrid, Seville, Zamora and Barcelona, with the aim of helping to rebuild the Spanish entrepreneurial fabric, damaged by the COVID-19 pandemic. Since the +50 Emprende Awards were created in 2019, the number of entries has been growing. Over the three editions (2019, 2020 and 2021), 739 projects have been submitted and about 1,200 entrepreneurs have participated.
The 10 finalist projects of the +50 Emprende awards and two special mentions
The ten finalist entrepreneurs selected are:
1. PATRICK DE LA CUEVA. (50 years old, Alicante). Former executive of multinational companies in the food sector. The idea behind his project, through his digital platform www.pdelacueva.com, is to sell first-rate agro-food products made by small artisan businesses with a deep respect for raw materials, processes and the environment. He aims to turn his brand into a benchmark for premium Spanish agro-food products with a focus on the European market.
2. SERGI GARCÍA-ALSINA. (51 years old, Barcelona). Together with his father Juan García-Alsina, the real project developer (83 years old and Chief Clinical Officer of the Valle de Hebron Hospital and Bellvitge Hospital in Barcelona), they have been granted the European patent for a system that makes ski boots more comfortable, providing the necessary stiffness through an exostructure that does not compress the foot: https://neuboots.com/ The product recently won an international competition for sports startups in the Occitanie region in France.
3. ICIAR ARESTI. (60 years old, Oviedo). Developer of the Añino Regina Merina project, to produce and sell garments and footwear made from Merino wool from Extremadura. They are one hundred percent organic and minimise their carbon footprint, without using petroleum-based products or heavy minerals. They target people who are aware of the need to turn the consumption of textiles and footwear into a positive environmental impact.
4. CURRO SOLANO. (61 years old, Cáceres). His project comprises a technology platform www.comersano.eu consisting of a web+App which invites users to lead a healthy eating lifestyle #comersano.eu especially when out and about, with the support of a nutrition and dietetics team. At present they have 153 member establishments throughout the country. He won the eHealth, Bio/Pharma Tech category at the 2021 Startup Olé event.
5. FRANCESCA GARRIGUES (52 years old, Segovia). Developer of a project that emerged during the pandemic called La Farm, based in La Granja de San Ildefonso, Segovia, with the aim of building a community by attracting new residents and visitors with exclusive accommodation, leisure and culture offers. The project was born with a wellness and health centre www.lafarmsanildefonso.com.
6. CELIA RIVERO (57 years old, Seville). She swapped her long career as a senior executive to train in Executive Coaching, Systemic Coaching and Psychology applied to Image, driven by the desire to help improve the leadership of executives and the management of their teams. She created her project www.celiarivero.com for her customers to gain confidence and security in leadership, through her own coaching method, called the CR Method. This led to her becoming co-author of her book "Conscious Leadership".
7. ÁLVARO RENGIFO (61 years old, Madrid). Chairman of the AMREF Foundation, winner of the Princess of Asturias Award for International Cooperation 2018, and trustee of the Créate Foundation, one of the entities that is doing the most for entrepreneurship in Spain. He submitted a personal project to the +50 Emprende Awards: "My Biblio" which arose from a gap in the "apps market". Its challenge is to allow users to order and catalogue physical books and know where they are located, as well as manage the particular loans to the network generated by the app.
8. LUISA MARÍA BOTELLA (62 years old, Madrid). Since 2002 she has been a researcher at the CSIC specialising in researching rare diseases. Her project consists of launching a spin-off together with a team of researchers with the aim of contributing to comprehensive care for patients with rare diseases. She belongs to the European Federation of HHT, representing patients of rare vascular diseases in Spain.
9. ANTONIO SÁNCHEZ (54 years old, Badajoz). Entrepreneur by vocation and computer scientist by profession. His project is an emergency system which combines an app and a remote scanning system that in the event of an accident or incident sends location, medical and contact information, through a bracelet or a microchip for all types of helmets, which are vital for the golden hour (the first 60 minutes after an accident). It has signed agreements with the 112 Emergency Service Centre in Extremadura and with PEMEA to interconnect with the emergency service centres in the EU, with the idea of extending it to more than 740 million Europeans.
10. CARLO CASTELLANO (55 years, Italian, resident in Barcelona). He has launched the Park4DISC project based on a European Recommendation, a platform that aims to identify parking spaces for disabled people. It is an idea that improves the autonomy and inclusion of the group of more than four hundred and fifty thousand physically disabled drivers in Spain and five million in Europe.
Special mentions
In this edition, the work of two non-profit projects that support and promote different groups in society has been highlighted:
MARÍA JOSÉ ANDRADES (55 years old, Seville). Founder and director of Mujeres Valientes, an association and digital magazine that aims to build a community to inform and help female entrepreneurs from different disciplines and professions to exchange experiences and establish a permanent professional and social collaboration. The project received the Meridiana Comunicación Award in 2019 and Outstanding Recognition from Andalucía Emprende.
NURIA MARTÍNEZ (53 years old, Madrid). Lawyer and chairwoman of the Tercera Edad (Senior citizens) movement that launches ideas and initiatives to help seniors with a very transparent message and separate from ideology. It is a nationwide movement founded by a group of retired people with diverse professional backgrounds and political tendencies and with a clear objective: put their life and professional and work experience, the result of an intense life of study and work, of commitment and dedication, at the service of the whole of Spanish society.
About the +50 Emprende Awards
The +50 Emprende Awards were conceived by 02:59 Films, the audiovisual producer of the feature film "Abuelos" (Santiago Requejo, 2019) and are organised in collaboration with Generación SAVIA. The organisations share a conviction that a cultural change is necessary to overcome prejudice and age discrimination in the workplace. This is an issue that affects around one million people over the age of 50 who have been prematurely removed from their posts. Our goal is to identify, promote and accompany the talent of those aged over fifty through the most important senior entrepreneurship awards in Spain.
About 02:59 Films
DOS CINCUENTA Y NUEVE S.L. is an audiovisual producer founded in 2010 with the mission of transmitting human values to society through audiovisual content. It was originally a producer specialised in the creation of viral videos for the Internet, with its videos reaching 200 million views on social networks. However, in 2018 it diversified its activity by developing and producing its first feature film "Abuelos", released in October 2019. The production company currently combines the development of film projects with its advertising service for the creation of viral campaigns for the Internet.
About Generation SAVIA
Generación SAVIA, the ENDESA Foundation and Máshumano Foundation project, has been promoting the employability of workers over the age of 50 for three years, providing solutions through training and networking initiatives, and promoting recognition of the value of these professionals, who have a high rate of unemployment. SAVIA is a platform and community in which collaborative spaces are created and initiatives come together to create job opportunities for senior professionals. It also offers human resources solutions to the Spanish social and business fabric. 35,000 senior professionals and 500 companies are registered with SAVIA. 180 entities also collaborate on the project.