Development is spelled with innovation

(Caracas, June 13, 2012).- In an atmosphere brimming with creativity, CAF’s Caracas headquarters hosted a ceremony inaugurating a tour for the winners of the 2011 America’s Innovators prize, an initiative that seeks to promote innovation in the region. America’s Innovators is supported by CAF –development bank of Latin America.

Winners shared their success stories with an audience that included public and private sector officials, academics, students and media representatives.

“As part of a comprehensive agenda in favor of development, CAF promotes innovation and entrepreneurship as tools to generate higher added value to production and exports and, in the end, generate wealth and wellbeing,” said CAF President Enrique García. He added that the institution promotes these initiatives through the interaction among public and private sector representatives as well as academics.

America’s Innovators’ Director Patricia Janiot said she was “convinced that we have set in motion an innovation movement across Latin America with which –as we have often said– we seek to popularize innovation. Let the youth in our region find in the fields of research, science, technology, education an opportunity to leave their imprint and bring about fundamental change in our societies.”

America’s Innovators’ Director Felipe Pagés, said “innovation, by the hand of our youngest talents, must contribute to generating new income opportunities and, thanks to their enterprises, create new employment sources.”

About the prize

America’s Innovators prize, supported by CAF since its inception, seeks to foster innovation in social, business, cultural and scientific development by rewarding the highest potential ideas in these fields, thus extensively propagating Latin Americans’ achievements, and helping spread their capacity for innovation within the region as well as outside of it.

The award winning innovations presented in Caracas were:

• Education: Online tools for education and social inclusion (Jorge Enrique Leal Rodríguez, Colombia): The Spanish-to-Sign Language online translator is a unique tool that is capable of analyzing a phrase in Spanish and translating it into Sign Language. Thanks to this tool, anyone can convert phrases into the common language shared by deaf people around the world.

The Education category includes conceptual or methodological contributions to education and the implementation of innovative ideas that may lead to educational improvements benefitting the community as well as social and economic development, while fostering competitiveness.

• Science and Technology: Computerized Assistance in Osteoarticular Oncological Surgery and Bone Transplants (Luis A. Aponte-Tinao, Argentina): This innovation is based on a computerized system that removes bone tumors and reconstructs the affected organs in a more accurate manner, which is essential for a bone transplant’s durability. It also includes the creation of an Online Bone Bank that facilitates a rapid and correct selection of the best bone for a transplant.

The Science and Technology category includes the creation of new methods, technologies or technological processes that may add value or facilitate the understanding or management of problems existing in any field. This includes scientific research in diverse areas that may result in contributions to knowledge or new solutions.

• Design: Coconut Lounge: Modern furniture for exteriors (Darío Polaco, Argentina): Original use of reinforced resin to make exterior furniture and freestanding laminar single-body pieces. The highly innovative simultaneous integration of both features made it possible to create excellent quality products at low cost.

The Design category includes design, creation or improvements that have an impact and can be considered true innovations in the market.

• Sustainability and Environment: Coffee Processing Byproducts Comprehensive Exploitation (Andrés Ramírez Vélez, Colombia): Coffee byproduct-based honey and flour production and marketing. These products are transformed and marketed as food for human consumption, cosmetics and cattle feed. According to studies, each coffee plant with a beehive cuts carbon dioxide emissions by 4,500 tons and CH4 emissions by 214 tons annually, thus protecting the environment.

The Sustainability and Environment category includes innovative products that help communities solve environmental preservation problems.

• Enterprise and Industry: BIALTEC-Applied Biotechnology in Food Supplements (Javier Mauricio Agudelo Rendón, Colombia).

The Enterprise and Industry category includes contributions to the development of the business and industry sectors in a community, with creative and innovative solutions that increase production or optimize them through innovative and original tools, as well as boosting competitiveness in such sectors.

For more information on America’s Innovators prize, please visit www.innovadoresdeamerica.org