E-Hackathon in Water, Sanitation and Hygiene for Informal Settlements in Latin America and the Caribbean: updates and winners
On 11th and 12th September 2020, 120 young entrepreneurs from Latin America and the Caribbean – divided in 30 teams – participated in the E-Hackathon in Water, Sanitation and Hygiene for Informal Settlements in Latin America, organized by the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB), in collaboration with cewas and Young Water Solutions.
During day one, the participants worked on defining the problem to be addressed, identified solutions and ideas to develop as well as their main costumer segments. The second day of the event focused on validating their ideas and assumptions with their costumer segments as learning how to effectively present the idea in a pitch.
The young entrepreneurs developed with great effort and commitment different proposals that could contribute to sustainably solve water, sanitation and hygiene issues. These proposals were subsequently evaluated by a team of evaluators from IADB and mentors from cewas and Young Water Solutions on the basis of their applicability, technical and financial feasibility, scalability and sustainability.
On 17th September, during the closing ceremony, three winning teams were respectively selected for the areas of water, sanitation and hygiene: Agua Segura from Venezuela, IFMG Forward from Brazil and Wayru from Perú (whose winning videos can be found in the official website of the e-Hackathon: https://bidhackathon.creation.camp). These teams will have the opportunity to be incubated and participate to the Young Water Fellowship Latin America 2021, which envisages a fully funded training on business, water and sanitation, $5000 seed capital for their projects and mentoring with high level experts during 2021.
Many thanks to all the applicants for their innovative ideas and to the InterAmerican Development Bank for making this initiative possible!
