Meet our Catalyst Asia Pacific Winners!

GIST Catalyst Bangkok Winners


Congratulations to all our winners! Of the 16 semifinalists who arrived in Bangkok, these 5 went on to the finals, pitching before a panel of industry experts for a total pool of $70k USD. In addition to the startup funding, each finalist receives 6 months of mentoring from GIST's U.S. business experts.

1st Place ($25k USD): Dr. Choe Peng Leo, ThinKers, Malaysia

2nd Place ($20k USD): Melissa Chavana, sinCarbono, Mexico

3rd Place ($10k USD): Trang Pham Thi Nhu, Brain Analytics, Vietnam

4th Place ($8k USD): Nadea Nabilla, Azura Indonesia, Indonesia

5th Place ($7k USD): Pamela Barroso, Luyef, Chile

 

Dr. Choe Peng Leo - 1st Place

ThinKers
Malaysia

Our startup focuses on thin film solutions for carbon capture, water recovery and food purification. Our first generation solution, the Carbon+ membrane, allows the absorbed carbon dioxide to react with calcium-rich waste to form carbonates. Our second generation solution, Carbon+ fertilizer contains carbonates that adsorb nutrients in wastewater for soil fertilizing.

Melissa Chavana - 2nd Place

sinCarbono
Mexico

SinCarbono is a software that simplifies carbon footprint reduction of SMEs, through measuring, reporting, verifying, offsetting and financing eco-technologies. It generates a sharable digital report that monitors reduction targets and that gives the opportunity to offset emissions through a forest conservation project in Mexico. It also offers a catalog of customized energy efficiency measures.
 

Trang Pham Thi Nhu - 3rd Place

Brain Analytics
Vietnam

Brain Analytics is a software to detect Alzheimer's disease early and accurately. It applies ensemble learning using traditional machine learning and deep neural network to analyze MRI brain images.

Nadea Nabilla - 4th Place

Azura Indonesia
Indonesia

Azura Indonesia is a social enterprise that provides an electric propulsion system for small boats, called MantaOne. MantaOne is a modular product that can easily adapt to any island. When users shift from a combustion engine to MantaOne, their running cost and carbon footprint are both reduced by approximately 70%.

Pamela Barroso - 5th Place

Luyef
Chile

Luyef is a mission-driven B2B food tech startup developing unique technology to fully replicate the sensory profile of conventional meat into alternative meat products (plant-based and cultivated meat) to achieve the mission to accelerate the transition toward a more sustainable and animal-free food industry.
 

Overview


Women-led innovation and economic empowerment is a catalyst for our shared global future and a cornerstone of an equitable, sustainable, and resilient global recovery. This year’s GIST Catalyst Pitch Competition took place during Global Entrepreneurship Week (14-20 November, 2022) in Bangkok, Thailand. The Asia-Pacific region comprises many countries and is home to more than 2.9 billion people. With the region entering the post-pandemic era, economies are seeking to restart industries and reinvigorate collaborations–doing so in new and innovative ways. One focus in this endeavor that aligns with GIST’s own goals is the importance of supporting women’s economic empowerment.

 

To that end, GIST designed this year’s Catalyst competition to focus on advancing women in innovation. The GIST CATALYST | ASIA PACIFIC Pitch Competition was a chance for science & technology innovators to showcase their startup, perfect their pitch, and get one-on-one mentorship and training from top experts thus helping to ensure that this under-represented part of the entrepreneurial ecosystem has the best chance of success. The semifinals and finals were in-person, on the ground in Bangkok, Thailand with startup funding granted to the top startups after the final pitches.

Read about the amazing semifinalist innovators who competed in Bangkok!

Participating countries:
Chile
Indonesia
Malaysia
Mexico
Papua New Guinea
Peru
The Republic of the Philippines
Thailand
Vietnam

 

What is GIST Catalyst?

Catalyst has given more than 80 entrepreneurs the opportunity to showcase their innovation to high-impact investors, policy makers, and leaders in the U.S. private sector, while competing for generous startup resources. Launched during the Global Entrepreneurship Summit (GES) 2017 in Hyderabad, India, the competition has been repeated in 2019 (at the GES in The Hague, Netherlands), the 2019 APEC Forum in La Serena, Chile, in 2021 at the GIST Catalyst Virtual Pitch Competition, and in Thailand in 2022 with the specific goal of uplifting and advancing women in innovation throughout the Asia-Pacific region. This year's competition promises to continue in the footsteps of past events, offering valuable learning and networking opportunities to the participants and showcasing solutions that the world needs now. 

 


About the Trainings

 

As part of the Pitch Competition, GIST brought top U.S. experts to facilitate workshops for the first two days. These trainings included deep dives into the Lean Methodology as well as a Gender Equity workshop to empower women in entrepreneurship and maintain equitable environments. Innovators also worked on their pitches, preparing themselves for the competition. Learn more about the U.S. experts that worked with the innovators.

 

 

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