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9.8.2022

Daikin and INCmty disrupt the Air Industry

  • Daikin in collaboration with the INCmty of the Instuto Tecnológico de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey (ITESM), launched the INCmty Disruptair Challenge 2022 on June 7th.
  • From the companies applying, three winners will be selected to incubate their solution within the cooling sector.
  • If you are a company innovating in the field of cooling, the deadline for applying is August 31st via this link: https://www.incmty.com/disrupairchallenge
  • With Daikin accelerating the deployment of their “Comfort Loop” CaaS offering across Latin America, the incubator represents a key advantage of Servitization applied in cooling, which enables for the more rapid deployment of impactful innovations on the markets, in a sustainable manner.

 

DISRUPTAIR Challenge:

 

Daikin, a partner of the CaaS initiative  and a leading innovator and provider of advanced, high-quality air conditioning solutions for residential, commercial, and industrial applications, launched the Disruptair Challenge on June 7th 2022, in collaboration with INCmty and backed by the ITESM. The Japanese air conditioning company and its partners are teaming up to offer a unique entrepreneurial challenge which aims to engage innovative firms to solve some of the most needed challenges in the heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC) industry.

 

For its first edition, the challenge is focusing on three main aspects: the democratization of the HVAC industry and the air culture, scaling up its sustainability, and innovative solutions to improve its value chain. The different competing initiatives will respectively have to present innovative ways to impact how HVAC equipment is used, designed and accessed or that propose a change in the paradigm within which the value relationship is built in the HVAC industry, with its current and future users; generate significant environmental impact reduction of the industry; or create substantial and measurable improvements to its value chain.

 

At the launch of the event, Shigeki Hagiwara, Senior Associate Officer and Chairman of Daikin Latin America Operations mentioned:

Daikin’s commitment to innovation is part of our DNA. We make alliances with universities, laboratories and industries around the world to make the visions of entrepreneurs come true. Tec de Monterrey is the best partner for innovation. The Tec’s vision is to train the most innovative staff and Daikin’s vision is to continue adding value through the air. Together, we create new value.”

 

While Pablo Rosas, Business Development Lead of INCmty shared that “The entrepreneurial ecosystem must turn to see the HVAC industry, in it there are great opportunities for innovation. Through the INCmty Disruptair Challenge, entrepreneurs will be able to take their initiatives to the next level hand in hand with leading institutions such as ITESM and Daikin. They will be accompanied in different stages of the challenge by mentors of the highest level and will be able to win up to 150,000 pesos and a business trip to Japan.”

Shigeki Hagiwara
Shigeki Hagiwara, Senior Associate Officer and President of Daikin Latin America Operations

Eligibility criteria:

Companies interested to apply to this initiative should bring forward solutions that add value to the HVAC industry in Latin America, through one of the below key verticals:

  1. Democratization of the HVAC industry and air culture (underlining the importance of high-quality air)
  2. Sustainability for the HVAC industry (from solutions that reduce the energy consumption of the HVAC systems, enhance their life cycle, or tackle the end of life of refrigerants for instance)
  3. Value chain improvement solutions.

 

In order to be eligible to apply, participants need to comply with the below criteria:

 

  • Companies and/or start-ups need to be at least in pre-seed & seed-stage and have their solution at the MVP (Minimum Viable Product) phase and ready to be scaled up.
  • Applicants need to hold a valid citizenship in a Latin American country.
  • Be of legal age in the country of residence or be at least 18 years old (either of the two cases).
  • Have an educational level of technical training or higher (bachelor’s or degree, master’s or master’s degree, specialty or doctorate).
  • Have the legal power to travel inside and outside the country of residence (indispensable element in case of being a finalist).

If you are eligible – apply here!

Benefits of the INCmty Disruptair Challenge:

 

Companies selected within the challenge will benefit from the below support:

  • Specialised and high-value content on issues of entrepreneurship and technological development.
  • Access to high level mentors.
  • Access to one of the strongest entrepreneurial communities in Latin America.
  • Connection with peer profiles in Latin America.
  • The satisfaction of participating and laying the foundations to transform an industry over the next 25 years.

For this first edition of the INCmty DisruptAir Challenge 2022, 100 projects will be admitted. From these projects, 50 will be selected by a qualified entrepreneurial jury, which will lead to 20 projects selected by a regional jury. The selected ones will be part of an onboarding bootcamp. Finally, the jury will select three winning initiatives to travel to Monterrey to be part of the Grand Final Event to happen during the INCmty Festival 2022 to present their final pitch, one of which will be awarded with a trip to Japan, while all three will benefit of an acceleration program for their entrepreneurship and a cash amount between $50 thousand and $150 thousand (Mexican pesos).

 

Daikin in Latin America: accelerating Servitization

 

Earlier in June 2022, Ricardo Rodriguez, Business Development Manager Daikin Latin America Operations (DLAO) presented a keynote session at the WGBC net zero event titled: “Latin America will stop buying Air conditioners: Servitization is here” – announcing the focus of Daikin to accelerate the deployment of Servitization in the region through their “Comfort Loop” Cooling as a Service offering.

 

The recording of the session is available here.

 

The strategic move of Daikin in the region, combined with initiatives such as the INCmty Disruptair Challenge 2022 shows the dedication of the company in accelerating the deployment of sustainable solutions in the cooling industry.

 

Through Servitization, as the asset remains under the ownership of the solution provider, this entity benefits from the right incentives, economically, environmentally, and socially to deploy the right solutions at the right moment on the market that maximises the value of the product to the end-user throughout the life-cycle of the asset: from higher energy efficient solutions, low GWP refrigerants, higher life-cycle components, optimised end-of-life management, etc—also enabling a circular economy approach to the industry.

 

Stay tuned for more news on the INCmty Disruptair Challenge 2022 and do apply (here) if you fit the profile!

 

Daikin and CaaS: a cool relationship

 

Daikin has been an active implementer of the as-a-service approach applied to cooling, and conducted CaaS projects in other regions of the world. A notable collaboration was on a project in Dar-Es-Salam, Tanzania, where servitization was leveraged to enable local populations to access new and efficient residential air conditioning systems and replace old appliances using more polluting and ozone-depleting refrigerants. The model relied on a jointly developed app by Daikin and Wassha, whose main features were to allow users to pre-pay for a certain amount of fresh air and remotely control the AC system. The project notably resulted in a 50 percent decrease in electricity bills thanks to efficiency for beneficiaries, widened adoption of efficient appliances, and reduction of their disposal (more info hereby).

Now scaling up the deployment of servitization in Latin America, Daikin is launching a new offer on the continent, the Comfort Loop. The solution is basically offering Daikin’s whole range of products from chillers and automation boards to fans or any equipment related to cooling on a subscription basis, which the company describes as being similar to internet subscription models. After an initial installation fee, the company charges according to the capacity of cooling that the consumer needs, and as usual in the servitisation, the provider retains the ownership of the product and stays responsible for its maintenance.

Pablo Rosas Jose Serrano Juan Chaparro Alberto Moreno
Pablo Rosas (INCMty), José Serrano (Daikin), Juan Carlos Chaparro (Daikin) & Alberto Moreno (INCMty)