The moderator of this panel was Enrique Topolansky, coordinator of the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship(CIE) at Universidad ORT Uruguay. Three graduates of the School of Communication and Design, who now work in various fields, spoke at the event.
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Lucía Martínez, B.A.
Bachelor's degree in Graphic Designfrom ORT, with a focus on managing projects that combine design and technology.
She is a co-founder of the creative studio Ameba, where they help companies and entrepreneurs grow and achieve their goals.
This year, he also launched a veterinary telemedicine startup called VetCase, which aims to help pets live long, healthy, and happy lives with their families by connecting pet owners with specialized veterinarians.
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Georgine Herbig, B.A.
Bachelor's degree in Animation and Video Gamesfrom ORT.
She co-directed two films that won the Uruguayan student short film category at theInternational Animation Festival in 2015 and 2017.
She is one of the founders of Triánima Animation Studio, an animation startup incubated at the CIE, alongside her classmates Florencia Guerra and Natasha Katz. In 2019, they won first prize in the Audiovisual Call for Proposals organized by the Ministry of Industry, Energy, and Mining and the National Directorate of Telecommunications and Audiovisual Communication Services.
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Ximena Aleman, B.A., M.B.A.
has a bachelor's degree in Communication with a concentration in Journalism and has MBA from ORT.
She is a co-founder of Prometeo OpenBanking, a platform for standardized APIs that provides access to Latin America’s leading banks and envisions a future where finance is open and connected. She serves as Chief Business Development Officer there.
Partnering with the client
Ameba’s founders describe it as a creative studio not only because they do design, “but because creativity cuts across all areas.” In that regard, Martínez emphasized the importance of iteration—trial and error. “I believe that design has taught us to be comfortable with failure and to come up with a multitude of alternatives in order to arrive at a solution that is both innovative and profitable.”
In the case of VetCase, he explained that the idea arose “partly out of frustration,” even though that’s a negative term; “I think it’s a driving force behind many changes, and that’s interesting.” His sister’s dachshund was diagnosed with heart cancer two years ago, and that’s when “a whole journey” began as they searched for an oncologist and decided on a treatment plan. “We realized there was a huge opportunity for growth in specialized veterinary medicine.” The goal is to connect pet owners with primary care veterinarians and specialists.
At Ameba, we partner with our clients; it’s a collaborative effort—we don’t just deliver a finished product. We need to have a very clear understanding of the challenge, the client, and the end user.
Lucia Martinez
Developing ideas
At first, Triánima focused on developing solutions for clients. Currently, it is working on its first in-house animated series, aimed at viewers aged 10 to 13, set in a city like Montevideo, where humans and monsters live side by side.
Herbig explained that they had submitted their initial idea to several calls for proposals. “After we weren’t selected, we analyzed it and realized it was a terrible idea,” he admitted. What they did, then, was continue developing it until they found an aspect that did convince them. “When we finally managed to secure funding for the project, we assembled a team of experts in many fields: education, medicine, and social development—all to ensure our project became exactly what we wanted it to be.”
It's very important to be open to feedback and to share your project, because if you keep it to yourself, you won't make any progress.
Georgine Herbig
Go out and explore the markets
Prometeo OpenBanking is a technology-driven startup that provides a single point of access to banking information across multiple financial institutions in Latin America. “Today, we are the largest OpenBanking platform on the continent: we provide access to 45 APIs from 32 financial institutions in 9 countries,” Aleman noted.
When they first started out, as pioneers, they often heard people say, “That’s not how it’s done,” “It won’t work,” and “It’s impossible in the financial sector—it’s just too traditional.” Far from getting discouraged, these comments led them to realize that “it wasn’t the product that was flawed, but rather that the market hadn’t matured yet.”
Another thing they learned, Aleman said, is that often “you have to go out and seek out new markets,” while noting that Uruguay is one of the most conservative markets in Latin America.
I believe that creativity stems in part from challenging the status quo, from frustration, from a sense of dissatisfaction, from the belief that something can be done better.
Ximena Aleman
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Fcse77Z4Uc