BRICS Women’s Startups Contest Winners Announced

The BRICS Women’s Startups Contest, aimed to spotlight and support women-led startups across BRICS nations and beyond, has gathered over 1,000 applications from 30 countries since its launch in June 2024.

The general partner of the BRICS Women’s Business Alliance series of events is Sberbank PJSC, Russia’s largest bank and a leading global financial institution. 

The strategic partner of the Contest is another leader of Russia’s banking industry Gazprombank (Joint Stock Company).

According to the estimates of the international jury, 26 participants in various categories were selected as winners and were awarded at the Award Ceremony that took place on October 18, 2024, in Moscow.

The award in the nomination “Information Technology” went to:

–Tatyana Patrusheva (Russia) and her startup “BRICS Healthcare Media Platform” aimed at organizing the exchange of information between scientific and medical communities and players in the healthcare market;
–Ma Ting (Margaret) (China) and her startup “Onething Technology” that creates an innovative edge computing platform by utilizing distributed nodes from users’ homes, implementing a “self-built + co-built” model, offering enterprises high-quality, low-cost cloud services;
–Mamela Luthuli (South Africa) and her startup “TakeNote IT” aimed to secure digital and physical assets by proactively mitigating the risk of hacking, vandalism, and theft, through engineered cyber security and IoT solutions.

The award in the nomination “Education” went to:

–Fabiele Nunes (Brazil) and her startup “Mundi Game Experience” that presents a gamified team-based simulations to build competence and culture in the areas of innovation, entrepreneurship and sustainability;
–Mae Al Mozaini (Saudi Arabia) and her startup “The Arab Institute for Women’s Empowerment-Nusf” aimed at helping Saudi and Arab women develop professionally, lead in the corporate and business world;
–Grace Karim (UAE) and her startup Bookends, a UAE-based online and offline platform, aims to promote sustainability by offering a marketplace where users can easily purchase or sell used books.

The award in the nomination “Artificial Intelligence” went to:

–Anna Meshcheryakova (Russia) and The Third Opinion Platform company, a manufacturer of digital services based on artificial intelligence technologies for the healthcare system;
–Azam Karami (Iran) and her startup “Automatic Fault Detection in Power Transmission Lines” (AFTL) that uses deep learning techniques in order to find more than 80 types of defects in power transmission lines (PTL);
–Jia Xiaoyou (China) and her startup “Embodied intelligence platform with smart hand and cloud intelligence brain as the core” that enables enterprises, scientific research institutions and other customers to quickly achieve real landing at low cost, and scientific research in complex scenes.

The award in the nomination “Food Security and Agriculture” went to:

–Yang Mei (China) and her startup “International leading heavy metal rapid detection technology” that has reduced the diagnosis time for lethal herbicide poisoning from 6 hours to just 5 minutes ensuring for agricultural safety;
–Shahira Yahia Youssef (Egypt) and her startup Chitosan Egypt, a biotech company, develops 100% organic crop solutions by combining chitosan R&D with industrial production techniques;
–Ankita Vijayvergiya (India) and her startup BillionCarbon that provides a fully managed food waste treatment solution for bulk waste generators, which is rapid, low-cost and fully circular.

The award in the nomination “Health and Medicine” went to:

–Mahvash Abyari (Iran) and her startup “Insightfully Scanned Glucose Monitoring” The platform analyzes patient behavior using AI and machine learning algorithms, providing reports to doctors to help them make more targeted prescriptions for patients;
–Marzieh Ebrahimi (Iran) and her startup “Immune Cell Bank for the Treatment of Cancer and Autoimmune Diseases”. Natural killer (NK) cells play a crucial role in eliminating transformed or dysfunctional cells, thus maintaining overall health;
–Julia Ruzankina (Russia) and her startup “Photon endoscope for the treatment of oncological diseases”, which allows laser radiation to penetrate deep into the tissue, protects healthy cells and provides a more accurate effect on cancer cells up to 10 microns;
–Julia Drapkina (Russia) and her startup “Improving the effectiveness of the IVF program in the treatment of infertility using artificial intelligence”, a software product based on machine learning with high sensitivity and specificity allows to choose the most high-quality and promising embryo for transfer to the uterine cavity.

The award in the nomination “Innovation and Infrastructure” went to:

–Isabelle Câmara (Brazil) and her startup “Pluvi” that converts rainwater into safe drinking water for human consumption without using chemicals;
–Seyedeh Fatemeh Hosseini (Iran) and her startup “ISTA (Intelligent Spoon for Tremor Alleviation)” that helps patients with tremors eat independently and without stress by reducing tremors using motion sensors and an intelligent high-speed control system;
–Ekaterina Kobyakova (Russia) and her startup “Special medical information system (MIS) of remote dispensary monitoring (DDN)” that allows to register both permanent and paroxysmal forms of cardiac arrhythmias, and provides prompt notification to the doctor about situations requiring his intervention.

The award in the nomination “Ecology” went to:

–Liudmila Prozorova (UAE) and her startup “Circa Biotech” that transforms organic food waste into valuable resources using Black Soldier Fly larvae;
–Yeshumnesh Adane (Ethiopia) and her startup “Agelgil Eco-Packaging” that specializes in producing environmentally friendly packaging solutions from agricultural by-products;
–Phumzile Khoza (South Africa) and her startup “Lathitha Biodiesel” that specializes in producing highquality biodiesel from sustainable feedstocks.

The award in the special nomination “BRICS Friends: on the way to sustainable development” went to:

–Nina Rakhovich (Belarus) and her startup “Carbon Plug-in”, a digital platform for the implementation of climate projects, generation and tokenization of carbon units used as an innovative mechanism for off-budget financing of socially significant projects;
–Almira Kurmanbayeva (Kazakhstan) and her startup “Construction of a plant for the production of polymer paints and varnishes with its own research laboratory”, aimed to create a manufacturing enterprise with a scientific approach, which will allow the introduction of modern technologies and reduce labor costs, as well as optimize the timing of construction and installation works;
–Aidai Kerimkulova (Kyrgyzstan) and her startup “50 MW Solar power plant”. The use of solar panels reduces carbon dioxide emissions and minimizes the impact on the environment. 50 MW solar plant project is a step towards a cleaner and more sustainable future that we can create together;
– Dr. Nonkululeko Patricia Mantula (Lesotho) and her startup “Global South Queens Media House (GSQ)” that offers a variety of features and key programs that ensure a rich and engaging experience – Video Content, Online Radio, Resource Blog – hub of information and knowledge.

The winning projects were compiled into a Compendium, which was presented by Anna Nesterova, Global Chairperson of the BRICS Women’s Business Alliance, to Sergey Ryabkov, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation and Russia’s Sherpa in BRICS, during the Award Ceremony. The document is published on the BRICS WBA Platform.