Six Chilean start-ups billed between 500 and one million dollars in less than two years and now want to enter the global markets.

The business incubator and accelerator of the Universidad de La Frontera (Incubatec UFRO) that has been distinguished as the best business incubator in Chile for four years in a row by the Production Development Corporation (CORFO) because of the amount of the businesses’ sales, chose six companies with high potential to revolutionize the international markets and invited them to present their businesses to potential investors and business partners.

During the encounter, the presentations included from an intelligent virtual safety assistant that blocks stolen cars, takes a picture of the thief and “talks” to him, to a company that disintermediates the current sale of currencies through technology, improving the price for the end user. All of them are Chilean start-ups that billed between 500 and one million USD in less than two years and that want to enter the global markets.

“At Incubatec UFRO we want to promote and strengthen Chilean start-ups with possibilities of international growth and to achieve our goal as a public and state university, which is to concretely contribute through talent and knowledge management to the country’s development, what translates into new innovative businesses,” Claudine Uribe, the executive director of Incubatec UFRO, said.

“The particularity of these businesses is that each one of them stood out in the different phases of development, from the prototype phase, to the phase of scaling and, for some of them, the phase of raising private capital. They all have a unique motor of development, in some cases a proposal of value, based on some kind of cutting-edge technology, such as artificial intelligence or sensoring,” Gerardo Lagos, the director of innovation at Incubatec UFRO, added.

INCUBATEC UFRO

Incubatec UFRO is a business accelerator and incubator that has been created 18 years ago, with its headquarters in Temuco and Puerto Montt, Chile. Until now, Incubatec UFRO has been working with 98 resident companies, of which 30 are valued at 53.8 million USD and 17 internationalized. It has been chosen by UBI Global as the eight best incubator in the world and the best one in Latin America in the category World Top Business Accelerator linked to University. It was also awarded by Corfo for having a portfolio with the highest level of sales in the country over the past four years (7800 million Chilean pesos in 2017).

CHILEAN START-UPS THAT WANT TO ENTER THE GLOBAL MARKETS

Rayo app: A logistics technology service that helps companies to make their delivery service more efficient. Some of the benefits are the short delivery timelines (about two hours), and the delivery of products of high-value or special care, such as stem cells. The project, which has billed more than 2 million USD in less than one and a half years, is one of the start-ups with the highest turnover and fastest growth (after NotCo) that has been through the programs of Corfo over the last five years. https://www.rayoapp.com/

Ivan Drive: It is the first intelligent virtual safety assistant that protects cars. The idea is to decrease the number of stolen cars by installing this system that includes face recognition, sensors that detect the unauthorized use of the car, traffic behavior patterns, photo-mechanisms inside the car and even the automatic detention of the car in case that it gets stolen.
https://www.ivandrive.com/

Trade Us: A technology solution that permits to quote and trade currencies in real time with different providers in an auction modality. A business idea that seeks to improve the commercial strategies and the platforms of companies and that increases their added value.
https://www.tradeus.cl/

Qmatch: A service that allows companies to extract, compare and track their prices and products compared to their competitors, with the aim of achieving competitive advantages. The next steps are to automate the tool and to improve it with new functions, as well as the expansion into the Mexican market.
https://qmatch.cl/

Vestúa: An e-commerce platform for the purchase and sale of second-hand branded clothing from legal persons. Vestúa takes charge of the whole process that includes the reception of the garments directly at your home, the cataloguing, online sale and transfer of the profit from sales. The initiative is seeking funding to execute a plan for growth in Chile and to replicate this technology in Mexico.
https://www.vestua.com/

Fast Billing: A Chilean software that facilitates the process of billing and on-site meter reading for the basic services of the country (water, electricity, gas). Directly after the meter is read, the bill automatically gets printed on-site. This innovation allows the big companies to reduce their time of transportation and distribution of billing documents.

Source: Incubatec UFRO

The Academic Postgraduate Affairs Office of the Universidad de La Frontera organized a welcome ceremony that allowed the new students to get to know each other and to talk about their experiences.

The new foreign students, who came to the Universidad de La Frontera (UFRO) to join our postgraduate programs in 2019, come from Angola, Mozambique, Brazil, Ecuador, Cuba, Colombia, Panama, Venezuela, Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Russia.

The Academic Postgraduate Affairs Office of the UFRO organized this welcome ceremony that allowed the students to share their experiences and to get to know each other. They also talked about the reasons why they chose this institution for their postgraduate studies.

They all agreed on how fast the UFRO responds to the requests and questions of the foreign applicants compared to other Chilean institutions, and also emphasized the international outlook of the UFRO that stands out in the world’s most important rankings, especially in the field of research.

“I did not know the Universidad de La Frontera, but when I started to search for information to apply to a postgraduate program, I took a look at the Shanghai Ranking, that ranks universities at the international level, and I found out that this university is in the first quartile of the best universities in Chile,” Jhon Avellaneda from Colombia said.

“It is very pleasing to hear that students of different nationalities have such a good perception of our postgraduate programs and that they recognize their excellence. And that is not random, it is the result of our work, especially of the program directors who don’t just focus on academic and scientific aspects, but also on humanizing the application process for international students,” Dr. Monica Rubilar, the academic director of Postgraduate Affairs at the UFRO, said.

The new foreign students came to the UFRO to join the following postgraduate programs: Doctoral Program in Agri-food Sciences and Environment; Doctorate in Natural Resource Sciences; Doctorate in Social Sciences; Doctorate in Engineering Sciences with Specialization in Bioprocesses; Doctorate in Medical Sciences; Master in Social Management; Master in Regional, Local and Human Development; Master in Natural Resource Management; Master in Community Psychology; Master in Engineering Sciences with Specialization in Biotechnology; Master in Total Quality Management Systems; Master in Education; Master in Family Studies and Development.

Dr. Renato Hunter, the Vice-rector for Research and Graduate Studies at the Universidad de La Frontera, presented the indicators of scientific productivity of the university to the new international students and, above all, invited them to enjoy this new stage in their professional training, to disseminate their culture among the university community and to enrich our institution with it.

RESEARCH FIELDS 

	Raúl Mabasso is from Mozambique, where sexual abuse has become a usual practice among the society, what especially effects minors. Raul is a clinical psychologist and entered the Master´s Program in Family Studies and Development at the UFRO, with the aim of studying the processes that have been developed in Chile regarding children’s and women’s rights. He wants to create a protocol that could help the people of his community to report and quickly prosecute abuse. “My country is very corrupt. If you have a lot of money, you can sleep with 10 or 11 year old girls and buy the silence of politics – or even pay the child’s parents. In my final thesis, I will work on the issue of sexual violence against minors, perpetrated by HIV-positive people.”
	Liana Abdulova is from Russia. She has been living in Chile for some years now and in 2019, she entered the Master in Social Management at the UFRO. She is a social worker and wanted to keep specializing. That is why she started to search for information about Chilean universities that have broad experience in this field. “I received timely information about this university and saw that they have been working on a lot of topics related to childhood and family, what I want to work on in the future. I hope to be able to implement some programs in this field, both in Chile and Russia.”
	Joelis Vera is from Venezuela. Back home, she has been working in the oil industry and after that, she went to Brazil in order to do a Master in fuels and corrosive effects of biodiesel. Now, she is joining the Doctorate in Engineering Sciences with Specialization in Bioprocesses, being interested to study the synthesis and characterizations of nanomaterial with different applications. “I am interested in applications in the environmental field and I would like to contribute to it and to generate knowledge.”
	Jhon Avellaneda comes from Colombia and is a student in the Doctoral Program in Agri-food Sciences and Environment of the UFRO. “I realized that there was a research group that was working in my field of interest, which is integrated pest management and the use of semiochemicals. I would like to develop a comprehensive strategy for specific pests, because it is a topic of worldwide interest, since many times, chemical compounds are being used, what leads to health issues for the people and the environment. It is necessary and urgent to find alternatives to these chemical products.”

Written by: Karimme Riadi
UFRO Vice-rectorate for Research and Graduate Studies

UFRO significantly improved its position in THE Latin America University Rankings 2019. The result increases the university’s leadership and underlines its excellence in the fields of teaching, research, citations, international outlook and industry income.

The Universidad de La Frontera (UFRO) achieved an outstanding position in the Times Higher Education Latin America University Rankings 2019. From section 61-70 last year, the UFRO achieved to enter the select group of the 50 best universities in Latin America by climbing to 42nd place this year.

Among the Chilean universities, the UFRO is ranked in 5th place and in 3rd place regarding the state universities. This is an important improvement that encourages and recognizes the whole university community and evidences the university’s leadership.

“The result of this ranking that ranked us among the 50 best universities in Latin America is the result of serious, constant and systematic work. And all with a sense of belonging to the academic work. As a university, we are proud of this achievement, because it puts us in a great position and ratifies us as a university that develops in different fields – in this case: research, citations, international outlook and industry income,” Dr. Eduardo Hebel, the Rector of the university, said.

Upon receiving the general and specific results in each field, the authority also affirmed: “This is a scenario that values our work from a state and regional point of view, committed to research, innovation and internationalization. There is no doubt: this is great progress.”

The performance indicators this ranking judges are grouped into five areas: Teaching (learning environment); Research (volume, income, reputation); Citations (research influence); International outlook (staff, students, research); and Industry income (knowledge transfer).

VIEW THE RANKING HERE

Written by: UFRO Communications Office
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The Fowler Global Social Innovation Challenge takes place at the University of San Diego, California, from June 14 to 16.

A team of students of the Faculty of Engineering and Science of the Universidad de La Frontera (UFRO) participates from June 14 to 16 at the Fowler Global Social Innovation Challenge (GSIC) in San Diego, California, USA.

This international social venture pitch competition recognizes, resources and rewards student-led social ventures focused on sustainable change and brought about 900 teams of 35 universities from 17 different countries together during the last eight years.

In this year’s version, the participants from all over the world will compete for up to $50,000 in funding and other resources.

The team of UFRO students of the Faculty of Engineering and Science, called “Clever”, was one of the winners of the competition “Experimentando” (experimenting) UFRO 2018 and directly entered the competition after being selected one of the best projects of Jump Chile, which is an initiative promoted by the UC Anacleto Angelini Innovation Center and Sura. They are one of the two teams that represent Chile in the competition.

“Clever is a project that aims at reducing the huge amount of plastic waste in the environment and converting it into a new material, which is very similar to timber, but consisting of recycled plastic. The material has a lot of potential for being used in a lot of ways, but, initially, we want to focus on the construction industry,” Benjamin Pardo, a student in Civil Industrial Engineering with specialization in Computer Science at the UFRO, explained. He is one of the team members who will travel to the USA, together with Jose Ignacio Barrera, who studies Civil Mechanical Engineering at the UFRO and also is part of the initiative.

Which significance has the participation at the Fowler GSIC for you?

This experience will be absolutely different compared to what we have done so far, although the methodology and the process is very similar to the competitions in Chile. Our presentation in San Diego is a step out of our comfort zone and, without a doubt, this event will bring us new experiences and essential contacts as an entrepreneur, besides, we will get to know the projects other students are working on in different places of the world.

What do you expect from your participation in this international event? If you win, what do you want to accomplish with this project?

We are very excited to go and hope to give a good presentation. We are getting prepared with the help of a large team, as well as with other institutions that give us feedback in order to improve. If we win, we will try to find the best way to distribute the budget, especially regarding prototyping and technical validation. Besides, it is a good chance to disseminate the project, as well as the cause behind it.

What kind of knowledge can an event like this deliver on a personal and professional level?

This event will allow us to get to know another culture, to acquire new and more knowledge about entrepreneurship, as well as to use our English language skills, what is fundamental for today’s professionals.

Written by: Mauricio Antivil
Macro Faculty of Engineering