10 Innovators from Latin America and Europe under 35 who will change the world

These young people have been selected among more than 100 candidates by the MIT Technology Review. Their initiatives seek to improve the lives of those who need them most in different areas such as education, health, safety or energy.

I am pleased to observe the undertakings that these young people raise, we have already seen them here and we have shown some interest in implementing them nevertheless; The support of the interested companies has not been achieved. It is gratifying to know that young people from Europe and Latin America (where a compatriot is included) are proposing innovative alternatives to solve some problems in our environment.

Next, I have chosen the 10 innovators under 35 who I feel contribute much more with their initiatives:

1.- Vahakn Matossian (United Kingdom), 33

Matossian is responsible for Hi Note and Touch Chord. Two musical instruments specifically designed so that people with disabilities can compose and interpret melodies as anyone. They are controlled through breathing to be able to play music without using the extremities. The first is intended primarily for people with less or no ability to move their limbs, but of his head. The second will be used by individuals with motor skills but without strength in the arms.

 

2.- Arianna Salazar (Costa Rica), 29

It is useless for a city to have a nice and modern design if it does not facilitate the day to day life of its inhabitants. What is the use of building large main avenues if the citizens are crowded in other peripheral routes? Why create green areas in parts of the city that its inhabitants never step on? Urban planning should be based on a rational study of the needs of the population to offer them the best solutions. But that does not always happen, and in the end it is the people who are forced to adapt to the cities in which they live. To turn this paradigm around, the development of the internet of things and big data analysis can provide valuable information on the behavior patterns of urbanites to help urban planners improve design spaces.

That is just the information offered by the Costa Rican urban planner Arianna Salazar through BitSence. This doctoral researcher at MIT (USA) and co-founder of the company has developed a technology that combines hardware and software to detect and analyze the activity of pedestrians and environmental information (amount of light, air quality, temperature, noise level, etc.). Thanks to this proposal, Salazar has been chosen by MIT Technology Review in Spanish among the 35 winners of Innovators under 35 Latin America 2017.

 

3.- Eduardo Jorgensen (Spain), 25

Jorgensen has developed an algorithm capable of recording and analyzing information in real time of the wearables that a patient uses daily (watches, smart wristbands, sensors, etc.). The objective of this follow-up is to identify different behavior patterns and predict risk events for that person. With this information, the algorithm calculates the insulin doses needed at each moment and sends a signal to a non-invasive and needle-free smart patch that automatically delivers that insulin to the patient through the skin. The system communicates with the patient through his app, which shows him the evolution of his glucose levels and offers recommendations for adopting healthier lifestyle habits.

 

4.- Anson Tou (Perú), 26

In recent years, electronic commerce (or e-commerce) has experienced great growth in the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean. According to a study conducted by Tecnocom, sales volume quadrupled in the region in just five years, generating around 66,700 million dollars (56,241 million euros) last year. To improve the situation, the entrepreneur and entrepreneur Anson Tou has created Qempo, a web platform that connects Peruvian online buyers with travelers who travel to the country to facilitate international purchases and that has become one of the Innovators under 35 Latin America 2017 of MIT Technology Review in Spanish.

 

5.- Daniel Wiegand (Germany), 31

The startup Lilium has developed the world's first electric plane capable of taking off vertically. After a successful inaugural flight, the engineers who created it are working on a larger version that will serve as an air taxi.

The plane is already a YouTube star. A total of 1.5 million users saw how the first electric vertical take-off plane was launched into the sky and made complex maneuvers without setbacks and without great noise from an airfield in Mindelheim in Bavaria. Here you can see it!

 

6.- Nadim Curi (Uruguay), 33

Nadim Curi believes that criminals take advantage of this situation to act with greater impunity, so he wants to do something to change it. With this objective, the young Uruguayan has created CityCop, a social app for citizen surveillance through which citizens alert the community of dangerous situations.

"Waze has already shown that this approach works with traffic," says the visionary innovator. Thanks to the information about accidents and traffic jams that users of the application facilitate, Waze allows you to find the fastest way. The idea of ​​Curi is that CityCop shows which is the safest route. The young man explains: "If you are asking for directions to a GPS navigator it is because you do not know where you are going, not even Google handles information about security."

 

7.- Kristina Tsvetanova (Austria), 29

After seeing the difficulties of a blind friend to relate to new technologies, Tsvetanova developed Blitab, a tablet that displays the text in braille to give autonomy to the visually impaired. Since the creation of the company, which bears the same name as the device, tests have been carried out with positive results in more than 3,000 beta testers, seeking to integrate the social impact in its business model.

In addition to the final individual user, the company also negotiates with companies and governments to acquire their internal use for employees of their offices at a market price of approximately 450 euros.

8.- Santiago Siri (Argentina), 34

For Santiago Siri, being born in Argentina means wanting to change the forms of politics and democracy itself. To his generation, "digital native and at the same time democratic native, after so many years of dictatorship, it was his turn to understand how the Internet and democracy are connected," says the young computer scientist. And that is just what you are trying.

Siri's solution is based on the chain of blocks, or blockchain, the technology on which cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin have been built. It is a distributed database, which acts as an accounting record. All transactions are recorded indelibly, the chain of blocks adds one more element and this information is not located in a single computer, but all those belonging to the network share it. Modifying one of these blocks in a secret way is impossible. This virtue, simplified, is what makes this technology ideal to serve as a spinal cord on which to sustain a voting system, which is what Siri has done with its Sovereign platform. But instead of monetary transactions, its platform uses the chain of blocks to certify the voting processes through an online participatory democracy platform.

9.- Loubna Bouarfa (Netherlands), 34

OKRA analyzes all available sources of information to find out which patients are not being treated and which is the right treatment for them with greater precision and speed. As you receive more and more data, the platform learns, tracks activities and tracks results to be able to offer better ideas continuously.

Machine learning provides a very flexible way to validate new drugs and new treatments. It also offers information to other interested parties in the field of medical care about the disease and the effectiveness of treatments.

 

10.- Manuel Piñuela (México), 34

The air that surrounds us is full of energy. The invisible signals of radio, television, mobile telephony and wifi are electromagnetic waves that not only transmit information, they also carry small amounts of energy that could be used to recharge small devices, such as sensors and low consumption devices typical of the internet of things ( IoT, for its acronym in English). And that is just what Mexican engineer Manuel Piñuela has achieved. Its new technology is capable of recharging the batteries of this type of equipment from the energy available in the environment. And his company, Drayson Technologies, has already implemented it in its lines of IoT devices for health and environmental study.

Environmental energy is practically ubiquitous in the developed world, the main problem to take advantage of is its low intensity, especially when compared to the energy needed to emit a signal. To solve this, Piñuela has designed Freevolt, a system capable of recycling this energy when presented at a minimum density of 150 nW / cm2, (a figure more than 1,000 times lower than the maximum thresholds of human exposure recommended by the European Union). Then, a rectifier converts it into DC power efficiently and, with it, the management module is able to supply enough power to charge small batteries by drip.

 

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Article taken and adapted from MIT Technology Review