Following the success of the Master in Management Disruptive Innovation Challenge, the Master in Sustainable Business and Innovation participants also had the opportunity to participate in the second edition of the MSBI Innovation Challenge, which took place from the 12th to 14th of April. Just like the Master in Management Challenge, the MSBI Challenge aimed to encourage innovative thinking and provide a platform for participants to develop disruptive business ideas.
Throughout the challenge, the participants had the opportunity to hear from inspiring innovators and mentors, who are all EADA Alumni. Among the mentors were Sana Khouja Laout, CEO and Founder of Drink Zeena and Guilherme Parente, CEO and Co-Founder of Apptite, both alumni of the International MBA and International Master in Marketing program respectively.
The winning project for this year’s MSBI Disruptive Innovation Challenge was Smart Bite, a solution to tackle malnutrition in South Africa. The team members, all from different countries such as South Africa, the Netherlands, and Mexico, came up with a nutritious alternative to existing products used by people living in poverty. They made use of local fruit production surplus that is often wasted due to inefficiencies in the supply chain. This innovative approach showcased the participants’ ability to identify a social problem and develop a sustainable solution that addresses it.
We got in touch with the participants of the winning team and asked them to share their experience and feelings after this challenge.
Joëlle really enjoyed the intensive challenge that they were given, and the exceptional guidance they received from their mentors. He explained that collaborating with the mentors allowed him to learn a lot, as they expertly guided the participants through the process and asked thought-provoking questions that helped the participants optimize their ideas. He particularly mentioned Rui Alves (his mentor), CMO at a fast-growing start-up, was highly dedicated to supporting them and provided insights into how he has set up successful start-ups in the past, as well as tips on how to pitch their idea effectively. Joëlle’s, his biggest takeaway is that you need to be flexible, move fast and fall in love with the problem you want to solve. His team was passionate about addressing the malnutrition in South Africa, and their ultimate goal was to offer a more effective solution than what is currently available. They recognized the importance of making a meaningful impact and were motivated to create something that could make a real difference.
Another participant of the group, Olga, said that the most rewarding part of the challenge was that the whole team got to create an innovative idea in 48 hours that has the ability to help a community. She says the most interesting part of the process was the brainstorming, and how everyone gave some highlights to come up with the final delivery. However, the thing she kept with her, apart from the winning, is how her team managed all the different cultures within the group and all of the different ideas they came up with during this process.
When we asked Manolo if the team had gotten in contact with a real business so that Smart Bite could be implemented in real life, he answered that for now, they hadn’t been in contact with any business to seek the implementation of their idea in real life. The team discussed this opportunity and they concluded that they need to do deeper market research to ensure that their products would be demanded and bought by their targeted consumers, and also analyze if the existing rail network in South Africa would be adequate for the inputs collection and distribution processes.
Nevertheless, he expressed that one of his teammates has a connection in Cape Town, South Africa, his hometown,and he believes this town would be the optimal location for the startup of their new business idea. Manolo expressed that the Innovation Challenge and presenting to a jury was a very exciting and intense experience because, even though it was only a 48 hour challenge, there were a lot of ups and downs while they were molding the proposal because of their goal of creating the greatest positive impact possible. When his team was told they were one of the three finalist teams, he was sure they were going to win if they pitched the product the right way.
Lastly, Christopher told us that they came up with the idea for Smart Bite by focusing on the disconnect between the malnutrition in children within South Africa (one in four children suffer from malnutrition in South Africa) and the Agricultural waste (ten million tons each year). They saw that there were two problems, one of extreme shortage and one of extreme surplus. Smart Bite was their method of bridging this gap. By taking the wasted nutrients of one sector and developing an affordable, scalable product that could meet the needs of South Africa’s “bottom end of the pyramid” or BoP. The team’s inspiration came from Christopher sharing his own experience of South Africa. Having grown up there and remaining connected to agriculture, he explained the problem of agricultural waste and his frustration at the matter. His team decided that they wanted to create a social business from that, which lands very well in South Africa given the social issues this country faces.