Impactec Launched!

The contest for entrepreneurs who are looking for solve Social Challenges through Technology

Buenos Aires, November 28th 2012 - Yesterday, at Globant’s office, Impactec was launched, the first contest in Argentina which, through an open social innovative platform, aims to find the most creative ideas that would help solve social problems in the country.

Impactec is powered by SociaLab (Innovation Social Centre), along with Singularity University, Globant and the Government of Buenos Aires City.

In order to participate, all applicants must upload their projects to the open platform (http://www.socialab.com/argentina) accompanied with photos, videos and every useful material they want to use in order to develop the idea. The ideas submitted, should respond to social issues of any of the followings topics: Health, Education, Employment, Housing, Work, Food, Access to Basic Services, Mobility or Personal Development. It’s not necessary to have a completed project in order to submit your idea; the SociaLab community will help entrepreneurs with the development process. The deadline for Projects and idea submission is December 15^th, 2012.

After 45 days of analysis, the three best ideas are going to be selected by a jury of experts. The winners will receive $70,000 (Argentinean pesos) in seed capital to execute the project. In addition, the best project will receive a scholarship to Singularity University (singularity.org), in Silicon Valley.

The launch was at Globant’s office and included the following participants: Santiago – Ambassador of Singularity University in Argentina; Rudi Bormann - Director of Open Government, from the Government of Buenos Aires; Guibert Englebienne – Globant’s Co-Founder & CTO; and Jorge Yoyo Riva and Fátima Ochoa from SociaLab.

More info: socialab.com   //   @ArSociaLab

About Globant

Globant is the Latin American leader in the creation of innovative software products that appeal to global audiences. For us, that means we are the place where the best engineers team up with art design studios and innovation labs to deliver a superb user experience. In only 9 years, we have created a company that:

- Has more than 2,500 professionals working for companies like LinkedIn, JWT, Google and Coca Cola, among several others.

- Was selected as Endeavor Entrepreneur (2005)

- Was named among the top 10 product engineering vendors (2011) by Global Services

- Was included in the 2010 Cool Vendor in Business Process Services Report by Gartner

- Was featured as a case study of Harvard, MIT, Stanford and others

For more information, visit www.globant.com.

About Socialab

Is the first “spin off” of the nonprofit organizations “Techo” (techo.org). After six years of development as a Social Innovation Center of Techo, SociaLab was launched in Argentina, Chile, Colombia and Uruguay. Inspired by Techo’s experience in the work between young people and the most vulnerable families of Latin-America, Socialab is looking for social entrepreneurs that, through technology, can solve current social problems.

This new social proposal seeks to identify, promote, accelerate technologies and transform businesses into massive and sustainable welfare for vulnerable people. Their work is divided in three areas: entrepreneur support, consulting firms and mass competitions.

About Singularity University

Is an Academic Institution in which students and faculty focus on the interactions between different technologies. Their mission is to assemble, educate and inspire a new generation of leaders who strive to understand and utilize exponentially advancing technologies to address humanity’s grand challenges.

With the support of a broad range of specialists in academia, business and government, Singularity University creates a global network of like-minded entrepreneurs, technologists and young leaders to participate in crafting a road map to guide the evolution of these disruptive technologies. The University is based at the NASA Research Park campus in the heart of Silicon Valley.