The contest already has its winner: HEAT! A type of structural concrete for housing that minimizes the costs of air conditioning by creating an additive that acts as an insulator.

“It was definitely a surprise. Now that we have funds, we can grow, plan things and bring this solution to market”, said José Carlos Remesar, master’s student at Engineering UC and member of the team, with Mauricio López and Sergio Vera, both Professors at Engineering UC.

This was the first version of Brain UC (Business, Research, Acceleration, Innovation) which is organized by Engineering UC with the UC Innovation Center and the UC Direction for Development and Transfer.

Each finalist presented a five-minute pitch, explaining their prototypes and how they accelerated them during the program. The 10 final ideas covered solutions to problems in areas like biomedicine, mining, biotechnology, agribusiness, smart cities and construction.

The second place was for Healthic— a device for detecting veins in humans, by combining the action of heat and pressure as natural vasodilators— and third place for Shel-Life — a natural and edible compound that is useful to extend the life of fruits and flowers—.

It was also announced that Brain UC program will continue for the next five years, through a partnership recently signed with Banco Santander to replicate the initiative as Brain Chile.