IESE and other international companies launch Restarting Together initiative

IESE, together with a dozen leading international companies, announced today the launch of Restarting Together, a global challenge that seeks to boost innovative projects after the impact of COVID-19.

In addition to IESE, the participating companies are: Airbus BizLab, BASF, Boston Consulting Group, CEMEX, Citi, Endeavor, IDB Lab, IE, Microsoft for Startups, South Summit and Telefonica.

The initiative aims to promote projects developed by entrepreneurs and SMEs that will contribute both to speed up economic recovery after the pandemic, and create a more resilient society, with more effective and sustainable capabilities against future similar crises. Through this joint initiative, this diverse group of industry leaders want to promote community engagement to build a better society.

The overall goal of Restarting Together is to find innovative projects that seek to expedite the return to normality after the confinement period caused by COVID-19. This initiative also looks to identify projects to boost economic recovery in a sustainable way, aimed specially at improving employment, revitalizing the ecosystem of small businesses, and creating networks and financial aid mechanisms for crisis situations. Likewise, the challenge encourages entrants to propose solutions that bolster cities´ response to any type of crisis in the future, whether it be sanitary, economic or driven by environmental or climate change issues.

How to participate

Interested participants can present their proposals from June 2 through June 30, 2020 by entering www.restartingtogether.com. Proposals will be evaluated based on their projects’ social and economic impact, feasibility, rapid implementation time, and degree of sustainability and innovation.

The nine most promising projects will be scheduled to participate in a digital Pitch Day on Sept. 9, 2020, when they will present their solution directly to the organizing companies’ representatives.

Three winners will then be chosen to share their vision with global leaders from the supporting companies. The three winners will have the possibility of receiving access to corporate resources from the organizing companies, including potential acceleration or investment. Additionally, all proposals should be available for development, promotion, and implementation by all, or some, of the companies organizing Restarting Together. The global and multidisciplinary focus of the industry leaders that make up Restarting Together allow for the implementation of these solutions, with the potential to achieve global results to make the strongest potential impact on society.

IESE´s involvement in this project has been led by the Entrepreneurship and Innovation Center. IESE will, along with the 11 other leading institutions, help judge the submissions as well as participate in the digital Pitch Day on Sept. 9. All the partner institutions are offering their resources in different areas to help develop the submitted solutions.

For example, in IESE´s case the winners will be offered mentoring, a workshop on corporate venturing (helping the entrepreneurs learn how to optimize collaborating with corporations) as well as the opportunity to pitch to a senior member of IESE’s Business Angels Network and Finaves venture capital arm. All the submitted proposals will also be able to utilize IESE’s deep expertise, research, training and connections throughout the entrepreneurship ecosystem.

The organizers will offer participants their experience and knowledge in diverse industries, as well as the opportunity to build relationships with leading multinational companies, and possible access to investment capital.

For more information about Restarting Together and the registration process, visit www.restartingtogether.com.