We continue to support the entrepreneurial ecosystem and open innovation at South Summit 2023
From 7 to 9 June, Cinfa took an active part in the South Summit, the largest annual event on entrepreneurship in southern Europe, which took place at the Nave de Villaverde (Madrid).
This 11th edition was held under the “Today 30” slogan, with the intention of publicising and debating the innovations of the future, framed within the sustainable development objectives of the 2030 Agenda. The Madrid City Council co-organised the eleventh anniversary of the event, IE University Miles being its main promoter, creating a meeting that brought together a large number of investors, startups, experts and corporations.
This is how we spent our time at South Summit 2023
Throughout the three days, Cinfa took part in various activities, such as panels and round tables. At the same time, we had our own stand for our open innovation platform, to present CinfaNext to the rest of the players in the ecosystem, corporates, startups and investors.
On Wednesday 7 June, our Head of Innovation at Cinfa, Julio Sánchez Mariñas, took part in two panels on circular economy and nutrition.
In the first of these, we exchanged views with Deborah Li, director of Mundi Adventures; Gustavo Vinacua, CEO and co-founder of Net Positive Labs; Yael Shemer, co-founder and CCO of TULU; and Ramón López, Head of Innovation at VEOLIA. The main theme revolved around the shift from traditional consumption patterns – where products are produced, used and discarded – to a more sustainable, efficient and circular system. The aim was to answer the question concerning whether it will be necessary to rethink the whole life cycle of products in order to reduce pollution and avoid environmental impact.
With the second panel, we discussed with Mariela Glandt, CEO of OwnaHealth and Melinda Nicci, CEO and founder of Body Collective how nutrition, mental wellbeing and physical activity have a positive impact on the treatment of chronic diseases, beyond patients’ medication.
On Thursday 8 June, the following breakfast and round table that we organised and moderated at Cinfa took place: “Innovation and investment in the health care sector: Trends and vision”. This time we discussed open innovation and its challenges and trends in the health sector, with prominent panellists such as Santiago Lozano, director of funds at Clave Capital; Marina Rigau, CEO and co-founder of MiMARK; Jorge Pou, director of innovation in healthcare at AstraZeneca and Tania Menéndez, Digital Transformation Officer at Ribera Salud.
More specifically, from the point of view of corporations, the analysis involved what makes a large company take notice and want to collaborate with a start-up, and how it can help the latter take its first steps in the market and find funding more quickly and securely.
And from a healthcare startup perspective, Marina Rigau pinpointed the challenges faced by emerging companies and identified what is most important when addressing the sector’s barriers to entry.
Finally, on the last day, the awards recognising the most disruptive, scalable, sustainable startups and those with the best team, were announced. The project awarded the best team and winner of the vertical in health was Legit.Health a project developed by the University of the Basque Country, which is transforming clinical practice in dermatology thanks to its platform based on artificial intelligence (AI) diagnostics.
Discover South Summit
More than 32,000 startups from 175 countries have been involved in this major event in the last decade, with projects that have generated revenues of more than 10 million euros and nearly 48,000 employees.
This year, around 180 startups took part in a space where they were able to showcase their projects and connect with other players in the ecosystem, after being finalists in a competition in which up to 4,500 start-ups from all over the world participated. Also present were 21 unicorns, companies that have reached a market valuation of USD 1 billion.
