Komunidad bested 85 other startups across 12 nations as it secured a finalist slot at the Impact Awards organized by EAE Business School in Spain.
Komunidad was the sole Southeast Asian startup in the final five companies that are being recognized for developing business models that help us work towards the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.
The EAE Business School Impact Awards was part of 4YFN (4 Years From Now), GSMA’s leading start-up innovation platform. It was held this year at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, Spain, where Komunidad also took part as a resource speaker.
Others who joined Komunidad on the pitching stage were Barcelona-based BCOME, a platform for fashion sustainability management; India’s Janajal, which pioneered IoT-based vehicles that deliver clean drinking water; Hello Tractor, an agricultural technology from Kenya and Nigeria; and ColorSensing, also from Barcelona, which helps reduce food waste.
Komunidad COO Allister Ayque led in making the pitch before a jury composed of Wadé Owojori, Director of the GSMA Innovation Fund; Marta del Castillo, CEO of Social Nest; Yonca Braeckman, Founder & CEO of Impact Shakers; Jonathan Denais, Investment Director at Educapital; Marc Sabas, Investment Director at Ship2B Ventures; Anindya Saha, Director of EAE Invests and Carmen Pumariño, Investment Director of EAE Invierte.
Ayque said hearing the pitches of their co-finalists gave them fuel for their advocacy to make communities and industries more climate resilient. “It is nice to have startups focusing on impact across the world and addressing important problems that we face during these times,” he said.
Komunidad’s impact and future goals
Ayque opened his presentation by highlighting the alarming rate of recorded disasters, driven in part by human-induced climate change and increasingly severe weather patterns.
He then discussed how the Climate Operations Center offered by Komunidad could potentially save lives by providing early warnings for natural disasters, such as storms, heatwaves, floods and droughts.
Ayque explained that they have been augmenting existing government services by adding local intelligence, applying modern data techniques, and building tailored-fit insights suited to a specific location, community and business.
To date, Komunidad has helped build 11 sustainable cities and communities, implemented 13 climate actions, and established 17 partnerships towards achieving these goals. During the panel, Ayque also mentioned that the organization has processed data for 2,000 locations, thus helping protect an estimated population of 100 million.
In spite of these achievements, Komunidad acknowledges that there is still much work to be done. The company is now focused on expanding the capabilities of its Climate Operations Center, as well as developing the Curbeet Mobile App, which harnesses Komunidad’s alert data and ChatGPT to provide disaster response information via an AI chatbot.
The panel picked BCOME as the winner among the five finalists.
But for Ayque, their overall experience at the summit was an eye-opener for Komunidad, especially in terms of driving social impact globally, the importance of partnerships and collaboration, and the urgency of climate action.
He said the event fueled their drive to achieve their goals. “The congress made me see and relate to the current landscape on the global stage where startups have a high level of competence in terms of product quality, technology and sector applications, market fit, and commercial value,” Ayque added.
