Santander has organised this initiative to promote entrepreneurship for the last 15 years. This year, there was a record number of submissions. A total prize fund of $700,000 was up for grabs, divided between the top three places.

Buenos Aires, 5th December 2019-. Santander has held the 15th edition of the Entrepreneur X Award, the competition that fosters a culture of entrepreneurship among university students.

The winning projects at this edition were Ginsens Biotech, a mobile diagnostics and monitoring device for chronic illnesses; Kinebot, a robotic assistant for gait rehabilitation and Oda Biovajilla, a project that develops sustainable dinnerware that biodegrades in 30 days.
 
This year, there was a record number of submissions, with a total of 400 applications and 180 projects submitted. Ultimately, 10 proceeded to the final at Santander's new corporate building, where each team of entrepreneurs presented their idea before a jury made up of Juan Pedro Córica, director of the Entrepreneurs Division at GCBA; Anabella Fassiano, Liaison and Technological Transfer manager at GCBA; Agustina Irureta, head of UBA Emprende and Impact entrepreneur; Matías Badano, Agtech entrepreneur, and Marcelo Fernández, Business manager at Santander.
 
The prizes at this year's competition were: $400,000 for the winning team and $200,000 and $100,000 for second place and third place, respectively.
 
Silvia Tenazinha, Head of Retail and Commercial Banking at Santander, who was present at the award ceremony, said that: “We are really happy with this result. It is really encouraging to see the number of ideas, projects and initiatives that Argentine entrepreneurs have, which are growing by the year. Our goal is to help them".
 
Since the programme began, more than 3,500 submissions have been made, 51 projects have received prizes and more than $2 million in prizes have been handed out. This programme forms part of the initiatives organised by Banco Santander's global student entrepreneurship platform www.santanderx.com.
 
These initiatives promoting entrepreneurship amongst university students are one of the key global strategies of Santander Universities and are channeled through Santander X, the global entrepreneurship platform. This programme fosters high-impact projects, connecting young entrepreneurs with the backing of Santander and universities.
 

Banco Santander and its commitment to education

Banco Santander Argentina is the largest private bank in Argentina’s financial system in terms of both savings (deposits plus common funds) and lending volume. The bank has 468 branches, more than 3.8 million customers (including over 260 million SMEs and 1,300 corporate customers), and is present in 22 provinces and in the city of Buenos Aires.

Banco Santander is the only European bank in the 2018 'Change the World' ranking of businesses that are helping to make the world a better place (Fortune magazine) through its positive impact on the community, among other metrics.

Its firm commitment to higher education, articulated through Santander Universities, also distinguished Santander as the company that invests the most in education worldwide (Varkey Report / UNESCO / Fortune 500). This is now one of Santander's hallmarks: it has 1,200 partnership agreements in place with universities and institutions in more than 20 countries and has allocated more than EUR 1,700 million to academic initiatives since 2002, and it provided more than 73,000 university scholarships and grants in 2018 alone, with the aim of helping people, businesses and society to prosper.