Being part of the Honors College led me to taking a class called design thinking and impossible problems with professor Robert Hacker. One day, they talked to us about Hult.
This is a competition that started years ago with Hult University, primary located in London and Boston and the United Nations. Every year they release a challenge and the ultimate winner wins 1 million dollars. The competition starts university wide, then the winning teams proceed to Regionals, then Nationals, then an accelerator where their idea of the challenge is developed, then semis and lastly finals.
Together with 3 other Venezuelans we decided to take on this years challenge which was to create bold businesses that for every dollar that we earned we would positively impact the environment. After much brainstorming we decided to leverage two existing technologies to come up with MOSS3D.
Moss3d is an idea that tackles a major problem that not many people are aware of. Tires. A tire is harmful for the environment in every stage of its life. From its manufacturing, to its usage since every time it has contact with the pavement the heat they produce releases CO2 while also releasing microplastics. Lastly as if it wasn't enough tires take more than 30 years to biodegrade ending up in landfills or oceans since rubber is such a harsh material.
We decided to reinvent the manufacturing of tires by 3D printing them with TPU, a biodegradable filament and inserting moss in the rim to eliminate the release of CO2 and instead creating a process of photosynthesis releasing oxygen becoming a net positive innovation.
Our idea fascinated the judges and we won the University-wide competition setting ourselves to compete in the regional competition in Boston.
This research opportunity was one that taught me so many things and one that I will be forever thankful for. I learned to develop and validate a market not only here in the United Stated but in Europe as well while learning about research strategies, business models, prototyping, finance models, marketing strategies to say the least. Additionally, coming together with these girls that I know will be my friends forever.
Now, LETS GET THOSE REGIONALS!!
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