Presenting in the 2021 edition of the global AIM2Flourish contest the stories of a solar biopanel and a biopesticide created by Mexican companies

By JOSÉ ÁNGEL DE LA PAZ | EGADE BUSINESS SCHOOL

EGADE Business School students were awarded two 2021 Flourish Prizes for documenting positive impact innovations from the Mexican companies Green Fluidics and Bioamin.

Every year, the AIM2Flourish global competition recognizes 17 business stories that contribute to the achievement of each of the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

This year, an international jury selected the winning stories from among 77 finalist stories written by students from 31 universities in 17 countries under the direction of 35 professors.

The finalist stories were chosen, in turn, from 585 stories published on the AIM2Flourish website in 2020.

Professor Ezequiel Reficco directed the EGADE Business School students who received awards in this edition, for their explanations of a solar biopanel and a biopesticide, both created in Mexico.

AIM2Flourish is a global initiative of the Fowler Center for Business as an Agent of World Benefit and the Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University, supported by the United Nations.

BIOPANEL SOLAR, GREEN FLUIDICS

The students of the Master in Finance at EGADE Business School, Ana Sofia González, Fatima Lewis Batres and Manuel Medina, are the authors of the award-winning story of the solar biopanel created by Green Fluidics, which contributes to the achievement of SDG #7: "Affordable and clean energy."

This company, founded in 2018 in Toluca, State of Mexico, created a solar panel made with microalgae and nanofluids, with the capacity to generate 160 watts per hour of electricity, that is 90% biodegradable.

"The microalgae act like plants that photosynthesize, absorbing CO2 and creating oxygen, while the nanofluids absorb solar radiation at high temperatures, thereby creating electricity,” the students pointed out.

To develop the story, they interviewed Adán Ramírez, co-founder and CTO of Green Fluidics, who suggests that sustainable cities and communities will be easier to achieve when the commercialization of this product grows.

BIOPESTICIDE, BIOAMIN

María Fernanda Castorena Elizondo, Víctor Campo Aguirre, Erick Ruben Calahorra Mejía, Alan Castillo and Adriana Aranda, also students of the Master in Finance, received the prize for their story of a biopesticide developed by the agro-industrial company Bioamin, founded in 2008 in Saltillo, Coahuila.

This botanical fungicide, whose trade name is Org Fung, contributes to the fulfillment of SDG #15: "Life on land" and is made from extracts of the creosote bush (Larrea tridentata), a plant endemic to the Mexican desert.

"It is a very efficient biopesticide that gives better and faster results than traditional pesticides," the students point out.

In an interview with Juan Osuna, CEO of Bioamin, they found that one of the main environmental benefits of Org Fung is the absence of chemical residues when it is used for disease control in crops.