Press Releases

June 2, 2020

• Boston Consulting Group, CEMEX, Telefonica, Airbus BizLab, BASF, BID Lab, Citi, Endeavor, IE, IESE Business School, Microsoft for Startups and South Summit are organizing Restarting Together, a global challenge for startups and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The initiative is designed to contribute to a fast-economic recovery and create a more resilient society in the face of a crisis like the current pandemic.
• The call for entries will be open from June 2 through June 30, 2020, on www.restartingtogether.com.
• The most promising solutions will showcase their project to a specialized jury on September 9, 2020, and the winners will share their vision with global leaders while having the possibility to receive acceleration support or investment.

Airbus BizLab, BASF, Boston Consulting Group, CEMEX, Citi, Endeavor, IDB Lab, IE, IESE Business School, Microsoft for Startups, South Summit and Telefonica announced today the launch of Restarting Together, a global challenge that seeks to boost innovative projects after the impact of COVID-19. The initiative aims to promote projects developed by entrepreneurs and SMEs that will contribute both to speed up economic recovery after the effects of the pandemic, and create a more resilient society, with more effective and sustainable capabilities against future similar crises. Through this joint initiative, this diverse group of industry leaders want to promote community engagement to build a better society.

The overall goal of Restarting Together is to find innovative projects that seek to expedite the return to normality after the confinement period caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. This initiative also looks to identify projects to boost economic recovery in a sustainable way, aimed specially at improving employment, revitalizing the ecosystem of small businesses, and creating networks and financial aid mechanisms for crisis situations. Likewise, the challenge encourages entrants to propose solutions that bolster cities´ response for any type of crisis in the future, whether it be sanitary, economic or driven by environmental or climate change issues.

Interested participants can present their proposals from June 2 through June 30, 2020 by entering www.restartingtogether.com. Proposals will be evaluated based on their projects’ social and economic impact, feasibility, rapid implementation time, and degree of sustainability and innovation.

The nine most promising projects would be scheduled to participate on a digital Pitchday on September 9, 2020, where they would present their solution directly to the organizing companies´ representatives, who would select three winners to share their vision with global leaders from the supporting companies. The three winners would enjoy the possibility of receiving access to corporate resources from the organizing companies, including potential acceleration or investment. Additionally, all proposals should be available for development, promotion, and implementation by all, or some, of the companies organizing Restarting Together. The global and multidisciplinary focus of the industry leaders that make up Restarting Together allow for the implementation of these solutions, with the potential to achieve global results to make the strongest potential impact on society.

The organizers will offer participants their experience and knowledge in diverse industries, as well as the opportunity to build relationships with leading multinational companies, and possible access to investment capital.

For more information about Restarting Together and the registration process, please visit www.restartingtogether.com.

BOSTON CONSULTING GROUP
Boston Consulting Group partners with leaders in business and society to tackle their most important challenges and capture their greatest opportunities. BCG was the pioneer in business strategy when it was founded in 1963. Today, we help clients with total transformation—inspiring complex change, enabling organizations to grow, building competitive advantage, and driving bottom-line impact. To succeed, organizations must blend digital and human capabilities. Our diverse, global teams bring deep industry and functional expertise and a range of perspectives to spark change. BCG delivers solutions through leading-edge management consulting along with technology and design, corporate and digital ventures—and business purpose. We work in a uniquely collaborative model across the firm and throughout all levels of the client organization, generating results that allow our clients to thrive.

CEMEX
CEMEX is a global building materials company that provides high-quality products and reliable services. CEMEX has a rich history of improving the well-being of those it serves through innovative building solutions, efficiency advancements, and efforts to promote a sustainable future. For more information, please visit: www.cemex.com

TELEFONICA
Telefónica is one of the largest telecommunications companies in the world by market capitalization and number of customers with a comprehensive offering and quality of connectivity that is delivered over world class fixed, mobile and broadband networks. As a growing company it prides itself on providing a differential experience based both on its corporate values and a public position that defends customer interests. The company has a significant presence in 14 countries in Europe and Latin America and over 344 million accesses. Telefónica is a 100% listed company and its shares are traded on the Spanish Stock Market and on those in New York and Lima.

AIRBUS BIZLAB
Airbus BizLab is a global aerospace accelerator, where startups and Airbus intrapreneurs speed up the transformation of innovative ideas into valuable businesses.

BASF
At BASF, we create chemistry for a sustainable future. We combine economic success with environmental protection and social responsibility. More than 117,000 employees in the BASF Group work on contributing to the success of our customers in nearly all sectors and almost every country in the world. Our portfolio is organized into six segments: Chemicals, Materials, Industrial Solutions, Surface Technologies, Nutrition & Care and Agricultural Solutions. BASF generated sales of €59 billion in 2019. BASF shares are traded on the stock exchange in Frankfurt (BAS) and as American Depositary Receipts (BASFY) in the U.S. Further information at www.basf.com.

CITI
Citi, the leading global bank, has approximately 200 million customer accounts and does business in more than 160 countries and jurisdictions. Citi provides consumers, corporations, governments and institutions with a broad range of financial products and services, including consumer banking and credit, corporate and investment banking, securities brokerage, transaction services, and wealth management. Additional information may be found at www.citigroup.com | Twitter: @Citi | YouTube: www.youtube.com/citi | Blog: http://blog.citigroup.com | Facebook: www.facebook.com/citi | LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/citi.

ENDEAVOR
Established in 1997, Endeavor is leading the global high-impact entrepreneurship movement to drive economic growth and job creation by selecting, mentoring, and accelerating the best high-impact entrepreneurs around the world. To date, Endeavor has screened more than 60,000 individuals and selected more than 2,000 founders leading over 1,200 scale-up companies. With support from Endeavor’s worldwide mentor network, Endeavor Entrepreneurs have created over 4.1 million jobs, generate more than $24 billion in revenue each year, and inspire future generations to innovate and take risks, building strong entrepreneurship ecosystems in growth markets. Headquartered in New York City, Endeavor currently operates in 35+ growth markets throughout Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, and North America.

IDB Lab
About IDB Lab IDB Lab is the innovation laboratory of the IDB Group, the leading source of development finance and know-how for improving lives in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). The purpose of IDB Lab is to drive innovation for inclusion in the region, by mobilizing financing, knowledge, and connections to co-create solutions capable of transforming the lives of vulnerable populations affected by economic, social or environmental factors. Since 1993 IDB Lab has approved more than US$ 2 billion in projects deployed across 26 LAC countries, including over US$ 300 million to develop the Venture Capital industry in the region. www.idblab.org

IE University
IE University offers a technology-based learning ecosystem for leaders seeking to make a difference in the world through innovation, a global vision, an entrepreneurial mindset and a unique approach based on the Humanities. IE University’s faculty of more than 500 academics currently teach degrees, master's programs, doctorates and executive training to students from 131 countries. IE University's platform of more than 66,000 alumni is present in 165 countries.

IESE Business School
IESE is the graduate business school of the University of Navarra. It is one of the world’s most international business schools, with campuses in Barcelona, Madrid, Munich, New York and São Paulo, and programs offered throughout Europe, Africa, Asia and the Americas. For more than 60 years, IESE has been at the forefront of management education and leadership development. It has done this through offering transformational educational experiences to more than 50,000 entrepreneurs and executives. IESE´s mission today remains the same as it was back in 1958: to educate and inspire leaders who wish to have a positive and lasting impact on people, business and society. This effort has been recognized by the Financial Times ranking, which for the sixth consecutive year has positioned IESE as the number 1 school in the world for executive education. www.iese.edu

MICROSOFT FOR STARTUPS
Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT” @microsoft) enables digital transformation for the era of an intelligent cloud and an intelligent edge. Its mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.

SOUTH SUMMIT
South Summit is now recognized as the global platform for innovation and high-value connections among key players in the global ecosystem, startups, corporations and investors in real business generation. An initiative created by Spain Startup in 2014, South Summit is based in Madrid, and has extended its connection network throughout the rest of Europe and Latin America, with meetings in Colombia, Mexico, Israel and the United States. South Summit19 brought together more than 20,000 attendees, among them 6,500 startups, 6,700 corporate and 1,100 investors with a portfolio of approximately $120billion. The finalists of previous editions have attracted more than $3.2 billion in investment, in addition to closing a multitude of agreements with corporations from the different productive sectors.

This press release contains forward-looking statements that reflect the Companies’ current expectations and projections about future events based on their knowledge of present facts and circumstances and assumptions about future events, as well as their current plans based on such facts and circumstances. These statements necessarily involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from the Companies’ expectations.

As a result, the companies involved do not guarantee that it will be possible to hold the described events, including the digital Pitchday on September 9, or award access to investments or corporate resources from the Companies. The companies involved are not responsible for the content of any third-party website or webpage referenced to or accessible through this press release.