A maternity of Portuguese oysters was the winning idea of the fourth edition of the contest «Ideias em Caixa», whose results were announced on Friday. The «Angulata» project was the one that received the monetary prize, in the amount of 4800 euros, in addition to several prizes, equal to the promoters of the 24 ideas that won the competition.
A final session of «Ideias in Box» 2013 it motivated another surprise, to add to others that emerged throughout the initiative. Instead of the 15 initially foreseen, 24 promoters were considered winners of the competition and 17 honorable mentions were awarded. The many good ideas that were presented in this edition made it necessary.
The names of the winners, chosen from a batch of 50 finalists (there were also initially expected to be only 30 here), were announced during the final session of the debate cycle «Made in Algarve», organized by the Regional Coordination and Development Commission of the Algarve , where they were introduced to Algarve entrepreneurs and companies.
Among the many winners, those who ended up having more reason to celebrate were the young Márcia Santos and Maurício Namora, promoters of «Angulata». She is a Marine Biologist, with a Masters in Aquaculture, he is completing this degree at the University of Algarve and they had the idea of creating Portuguese oyster seed, a species that, despite being endemic and highly appreciated, is not very produced, in partly because of the difficulty in finding juveniles.
«Currently, in Portugal, we are essentially producing Pacific oysters. In the past, it was the Portuguese oyster that dominated the national oyster farming and we would like it to be like that again. We know it's possible and that's when we got our business idea», revealed Márcia Santos.
In addition to "valuing an entirely national product and avoiding the cultivation of non-native species", this project will have the added value of "decreasing imports and increasing exports of oysters", according to the project's promoters.
«Nowadays, oyster growers are importing oyster seed, fattening it in Portugal and selling it abroad. We would like to reverse this trend. The Portuguese oyster is a much more appreciated product than other varieties, particularly by the French», guaranteed Márcia Santos.
Maturity of the idea earned first prize
Although both promoters are still very young, the business idea they presented is already well defined, which is why the jury chose her as the winner.
«Within those that were the evaluation criteria, a very well structured project resulted as a differentiation, presented by young, capable and dynamic promoters. We think the Angulata business idea is very relevant for the region. The potential for valuing endogenous resources, but also increasing the competitiveness of the region and its products, made the difference», revealed Hugo Barros, director of the CRIA-Division of Entrepreneurship and Technology Transfer at the University of Algarve, who promoted the « Ideas in Box».
“We already have the well-defined idea and perspective of creating a company. I cannot say that the idea is on stand by, but, of course, we were waiting for the result of this contest», said Maurício Namora.
“We want to create the company and start working as soon as possible. Of course, for that, we will have to go looking for funding. The next step is to create a Business Plan, secure funding and start operating as soon as possible,” he added.
The monetary prize that the «Angulata» project received will be a precious help in this field. “This will allow one of us to devote full time to the project. It is necessary to prepare the Business Plan, carry out market studies. It will give us independence, for some time, to dedicate ourselves exclusively to the project”, said Maurício, who is still finishing his degree. Márcia has already completed her Masters in Aquaculture and is working.
As for the amount they will need to put the project on its feet, there are "predictions", but the two young people prefer not to commit to a number, as there are still variables to be defined that make them go up or down. The location of the project is one of the factors yet to be defined.
«We know the characteristics of the place where we want to install the maternity hospital and we already have some proposals for places. We are still studying. We will have to have a closed building, with a very controlled environment», described Márcia Santos.
There were 24 potential businesses that won the «Ideias em Caixa» 2013
In addition to «Angulata», there were 23 other winning projects in this year's «Ideias em Caixa». Here, the only division that was made was between the top 15, which includes the Portuguese oyster maternity hospital and the promoters that ranked between 16th and 24th position.
The promoters of all these projects will now be entitled to business coaching, corporate image development, web design services, hosting and domain registration (1 year), virtual incubation, accounting support (6 months) and membership registration. ANJE (1 year).
In the first fifteen, there are also the following projects: «Algarve Trail Running», «Energy Click», «Green Salt», «Hefesto System», «Likecork», «High performance product line for extreme sports in cork », «Makefish», «Nine Finger Technology», «Ouro do Algarve», «Psitube», «Shrimppo» «Santa Luzia Coop», «Sunset Eco Hostel» and «Usmart».
The «Ideias em Caixa», which integrates the «Algarve 2015 │ Empreender e Inovar+» project, financed by the PO Algarve 21, has NERA as a partner. Caixa Geral de Depósitos is one of the main supporters of the UAlg project.
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