- Voluta.coop, Nixi for Children and eAgora will receive mentoring from innovation experts and financial support to develop proofs of concept for their product/service over the next 12 weeks.
Barcelona, 5 November 2021. The Cellnex Foundation has presented the three projects –Voluta.coop, Nixi for Children and eAgora– picked to join the first edition of the Cellnex Bridge acceleration programme which launched in July to promote innovative initiatives aimed at leveraging technology and connectivity to narrow digital, social and territorial divides. The presentation took place in Barcelona at one of the workcentres of Atticolab, a startup accelerator collaborating in the programme together with the social innovation consultancy Innuba.
Àngels Ucero, Director of the Cellnex Foundation, stressed that “inequalities are growing, and vulnerable groups are the most affected. And that is why the great challenge we face is to help narrow the divides by making this world a fairer and more sustainable place. Our goal is to transform lives by helping people stay connected and engage with the world, while making connectivity increasingly effective, affordable and, above all, universal.”
Quino Fernández, CEO of Atticolab, underlined the importance of corporations collaborating with startups to “absorb and use the full extent of their talent”, while David Alayón, CEO of Innuba, signalled that “this is a great moment for purpose-driven innovation, defusing tension and being at once socially, environmentally and economically sustainable.”
The Cellnex Bridge acceleration programme pairs startups with a multidisciplinary group of mentors from AticcoLab and Innuba who are experts in the world of entrepreneurship and open innovation, and with Cellnex experts selected on a case-by-case basis according to their suitability to support the growth and impact of each project. The mentoring sessions, focused on developing a proof of concept, will be combined with training in various areas of the business as well as specific sessions to shape the financial plan, communication strategy, investment plan, personal and collective development and more.
Cellnex will also provide the necessary technology and knowledge to make projects successful.
Selected startups
These first initiatives were characterised by outstanding quality: at the core of them all are powerful ideas and value propositions linked to fields like education, care for vulnerable people and the promotion of rural areas. Chosen from among more than fifty startup applicants after a thorough evaluation and selection process, Voluta.coop, Nixi for Children and eAgora will now join the Cellnex Bridge social-impact accelerator.
Voluta.coop
Rural entrepreneurship startup that seeks to attract families, digital nomads and entreprising repopulators by connecting rural and urban environments through hens and IoT technology. Its main objective is to diversify rural economic activity and reinvigorate life in society with smart solutions, workshops and eco-social events that combat depopulation, detachment from nature and the digital divide.
Nixi for Children
Startup that uses virtual reality to help alleviate anxiety among children and families preparing for operations or other hospital interventions. “Nixi kits” with experience-generating virtual reality goggles offer users a fun and familiar way to understand the situations in which they will find themselves. This empowers the patient, increases family satisfaction, and makes hospitals more human.
eAgora
Application that connects the ensemble of stakeholders in a territory (citizens, the third sector, private sector and public administration) to forge a network of municipalities promoting knowledge transfer and solutions. Its chief objective is to promote citizen participation and deploy and gauge the social impact of the 2030 Agenda by using gamification to showcase sustainable actions and keep real-time logs of SDG-related actions in each municipality.
Now Voluta.coop, Nixi for Children and eAgora join the 12-week acceleration programme and will receive up to €15,000 in financial support to develop their project.
During the presentation, Lluís Deulofeu, President of the Cellnex Foundation, emphasised that the Foundation’s objective with this initiative was to build cooperation networks in which all parties work towards common challenges and seek permanent solutions that make it possible to promote the talent and innovation of entrepreneurs with ideas of social impact, while helping to reduce social inequality and enhance digital capacity, quality of life and universal sustainability.
