After 4 days of immersion in nature, prototyping and exchanging of experiences, the “Hackathon Ekos: Mãos na Mata” reached the end. The marathon was promoted by Natura Campus in the city of Belém in March, from 16 to 20. The 32 participants, who came from different states of Brazil, got to know from a closer distance the local culture and developed ideas with the objective of creating a prototype that would connect people to nature.
The Project pitching was the last challenge of the participants. On Sunday, 20, after having worked for two days in prototyping ideas to connect the Amazon rainforest and Nature to people’s daily lives, the teams started to share, early in the morning, the results of so much effort and knowledge exchange. The presentations were very well evaluated and three projects stood out as the best ones: Projeto Kya, VirVer and the great winner of this edition, Projeto Quintal Mágico. The winning team is formed by José Neto, a student from the state of Pará, Paulo Paciência and Marcela Porto, both students from the state of São Paulo and Luiza Voll, an advertising professional from the state of Minas Gerais.
The winning project connects popular knowledge and new technology for the maintenance of a garden. “Many people like growing plants at home, but with their hectic routines, they end up forgetting to take care of them. The idea behind the Clube Quintal Mágico (Magic Garden Club) is to sell a pack of selected seeds and sensors that are going to help people grow a small vegetable or simple garden correctly”, explains José Neto, who studies production engineering in the city of Belém and participated in a technology event like a Hackathon for the first time.
The proposition presented by the team consists of sensors that measure, for example, soil humidity and indicate when the plant needs water and other nutrients through flashes of lights and alerts in an app. Other seven projects were presented in the end of the marathon, last Sunday, like an educational board game that approaches the smells and textures of fruit from the Amazon rainforest and other biomes, encouraging the participants to acquire knowledge about natural inputs.
“The greatest prize for me was the exchange of experiences. Our learning curve was really fast and knowing that our ideas are feasible and useful is wonderful”, José Neto affirms.
The advertising professional from the state of Minas Gerais, Luiza Voll, who also didn’t have experience with technology, was surprised with the ability of the team to connect the knowledge of each member in the construction of the winning project. “Right from the start, everyone in the team would listen to each other. Everybody wanted to learn, grow and come up with an idea that everybody loved”, she affirms.
Research studies show that most of the people who live in cities are highly disconnected from nature. “We believe that Ekos plays an important role in changing this reality. The brand has been doing this for 15 years. We’ve been taking a small part of the Amazon rainforest to people’s homes and we want to expand this perspective, impacting the daily lives of our consumers”, says Claudia Pinheiro, Natura’s Personal Care director, who’s responsible for the Ekos brand.
Throughout more than 30 hours of prototyping, the participants spent time in the city of Belém and in the riverside community of Jauari, in Moju (state of Pará) that carries out the sustainable management of murumuru and other active ingredients from the Amazon rainforest to produce the cosmetics of the Natura Ekos line. The participants competed against more than 150 applicants and were chosen based on an analysis of their profiles and ideas.
The “Hackathon Ekos: Mãos na Mata” is part of the Natura Campus open innovation program, which was created in 2006 and aims at forming a network that connects science and technology institutions, researchers, students, entrepreneurs and agencies that encourage research so that they can work together to create disruptive innovations.
“Hackathons are extremely important for bringing new perspectives, solutions and technologies that enable us to go beyond innovation in the cosmetic product and offer innovative experiences to our consumers. The projects presented are potentially feasible” affirms Luciana Hashiba, Natura’s innovation manager.
The winning team was awarded with one 3D Ultimaker 2Go printer and each team member got a set with 10 plastic filaments. They’ll also have the opportunity to visit Natura’s headquarters in the city of Cajamar and present their project to an audience made up of Innovation leaders and a group of invited partners.
Furthermore, all the participants also acquired much knowledge in the four days of immersion in nature and prototyping of the Hackathon Ekos.
Check out, soon, an interview with the winners in our blog.
Palpable result
During the event, Natura presented the first project developed by the company based on one of the winning ideas of its first Hackathon, carried out in 2014: a system to personalize the soaps produced by the brand. Portable and user-friendly the platform enables consumers to choose words and icons to engrave in the surface of the product using software installed in a device that is connected to a small engraving piece of equipment.
The machine was adapted to offer high personalization flexibility. “Consumers are in the core of the decision and personalization, in an interactive way. They can do more than just writing their names, they can write a message to give as a gift to someone, for example”, explains Luciana Hashiba, Natura’s Innovation manager.
This innovation resulted in the filling of a patent. The service is being tested and will probably be available for consumers in the second half of 2016.
Versão Português