Desafío Emprendedor Competition

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Banco de Chile, in partnership with the Desafío Levantemos Chile Foundation created the National Desafío Emprendedor Competition in 2016 to foment entrepreneurship. The initiative focuses on strengthening and giving visibility to micro and small entrepreneurs by providing funding and training that gives them technical tools they can apply to their businesses, such as responsible borrowing, a business model and sustainability.

In May 2020, the award ceremony for the 4th version of the competition was held, with 56,532 participants applying nationwide, the highest number since the initiative was first launched.

Due to the public health contingency, the final stage of the competition, which includes presentations from the 30 finalists to the jury, was held remotely, while the traditional Entrepreneur Fair was not held to safeguard the health of the entrepreneurs and the general public. Likewise, Banco de Chile made all its communication platforms and advertising guidelines available to the finalists in order to help them publicize their projects. The representative from the Los Ríos Region, María Loreto Mendoza, won first place for her project “Bioxiplas”, which produces biodegradable disposable uniforms to be used in food processing plants, as well as trash bags and packaging materials.

The 5th version of the National Desafío Emprendedor Competition was launched in August, attracting 56,123 applicants from around the country. Of the total enrolled, 401 micro-enterprises and SMEs were pre-selected to move on to the next stage, which consists of online training sessions and workshops on sustainable business models, responsible borrowing and financial education. With 32 finalists, the award ceremony took place in December. In the micro-enterprise category, the winner was Diego Cartes with his “Green Bricks” business, a company in the Biobío Region that transforms plastic waste into sustainable construction material such as paving stones and high-performance cladding. In the SME category, first place went to Mario Bustamante, from the Metropolitan Region for his venture “Instacrops”, a virtual farming platform that helps boost production through the use of sensors and software to provide farmers with real-time recommendations. They each received Ch$20 million in prize money to grow their businesses.

Due to the Metropolitan Region’s relapse into phase 2 of the government’s Step by Step Plan, both the pitch (presentation of an executive summary of the project) and the award ceremony were held semi-in person, thus complying with measures established by public health authorities to avoid exposing the entrepreneurs and jury members.

Desafío Emprendedor Competition