Entrepreneurship goes far beyond materializing a business idea from scratch, it is an opportunity to turn people into more creative, proactive and innovative entities.
A total of 19 young people presented their disruptive ideas on sustainable and necessary businesses to improve different practices and processes that are currently used in the country.
The GSEA competition is a global competition organized by EO in each of the countries where it has a presence. The main idea is to motivate and generate an impact on entrepreneurs nationwide, who are still university students or recent graduates, who have a running business that have billed at least 500 dollars a year.
EO’s purpose is to help entrepreneurs reach their highest potential. In 2021, Progreso X, the corporate accelerator of Progreso, joined forces with EO to carry out this mission, contributing to the training processes and the experience of the participants.
For Erick Melgar, general manager of Progreso X, this initiative promotes the growth of the entrepreneurial movement in the country. «It is important to encourage the local innovation system and support early-stage entrepreneurs,» he said.
After several months of competition, workshops and consultancies, two of the GSEA winners shared their impressions about the competition and the challenges involved in entrepreneurship in Guatemala.
Of the 19 registered entrepreneurs, the winners were:
1. Eber Aguilar – PONTO
2. Diego Fernandez – SENTO
3. Freddy López – DOMOTEK
The first place will represent Guatemala in the world competition that due to sanitary restrictions will be held virtually next June.
Eber Aguilar, 24, a Business Administration student, won first place with his project “Ponto” (Sea in Hebrew). He and his team found a sustainable and functional way to make the most of the resources that the Guatemalan Pacific offers.
«The mission of our project is to find ways to make fishing sustainable, through technology,» he says.
At that time, Eber identified that one of the causes of overfishing is that the industry wastes 30 percent of the total weight of the fish for human consumption, which remains in the head and backbone; 60 to 70 percent of all nutrients are stored in these parts of the fish; collagen, calcium, folic acid, phosphorus, iron and omega 3.
That is why Ponto developed a technology where those parts of the fish are used to turn them into a «Special Paste», from which various food products can be made for different uses. They discovered that the most profitable way is to make fish inlays; pancakes, and sausages.
This is how, in addition to generating new jobs, Ponto also contributes to a better diet for consumers at affordable prices.
Diego Fernández, a recently graduated industrial engineer, explains that his project, “Sento”, would not have had the same momentum had it not found a space like GSEA. «For us, it was decisive to find experts, entrepreneurs and the entire ecosystem that gave us that feedback that is so necessary when your project is newly created.»
Diego and his team designed a software that uses Artificial Intelligence (AI), which connects to calls in any Call Center of any company, to obtain data on the efficiency of the service, the treatment of customers and what kind of problems exist to find a solution.
Diego and his team are clear that developing software is a process that is just beginning in the country. They believe their technology can save time and resources for the myriad of customer service and call centers that exist today. «It is an opportunity that we should not miss,» he stressed.
If you want to know more about these projects led by young Guatemalans, we invite you to visit their websites, (Sento) https://sento-ai.com and (Ponto) www.pontofood.com
The project accelerator seeks disruptive ideas to lead them and turn them into a reality. If you want to know more about Progreso X, we invite you to visit its page https://www.progreso-x.com/
