Technovation Girls Comunidad Valencia is the most important technological entrepreneurship programme/contest targeting girls in the world. Technovation Girls is organised by US non-profit association Technovation, and its branch in the Comunidad Valenciana is led and promoted by Talent Growth Management (TGMBP) CEO María José Valero. This programme challenges girls aged 10 to 18 to develop an app aiming at solving social issues in their communities by performing a market research, developing a marketing and a business plan, and presenting it to a jury.

Finnova Foundation and Technovation Girls have launched some challenges linked to real projects where Finnova is a partner and which are aligned with UN SDGs. These challenges were open to all female participants in Technovation Girls, both in this edition as well as in the former ones.

The students from the Colegio Abecé school in Gandía won the “Reusing Food Waste” challege, which is based on LIFE ECOdigestion 2.0, where Finnova Foundation acts as a partner. In short, this LIFE project enables to transform organic waste into on-demand biogas in wastewater sludge difesters.

By drawing inspiration from this project, Abecé students created “Comen!”, an app which strives to solve the food waste issue in two stages. On the one hand, local social institutions and HORECA enterprises are brought together to avoid disposing of foodstuffs which can still be used. These foodstuffs are subsequently distributed to needy families. On the other hand, Comen! takes a step further. By drawing inspiration from LIFE ECOdigestion 2.0 and its circular economy model, the students aim to use this app to bring together local wastewater treatment plants and HORECA enterprises to reduce the environmental impact of the organic wastes they produce. It is worth noting that in Spain, 7.7 million food wastes are disposed of every year.