Cartas com Ciência wins entrepreneurship award

Native Scientist’s spin-off Cartas com Ciência won the second prize of the Award Go Green Go Social (Best Business Idea, Melhor Ideia de Negócio in the original title), given by NOVA FCSH and Santander Universidades.

The Award “Best Business Idea”, jointly organised by NOVA FCSH and Santander Universidades, aims at stimulating the creation and development of new business ideas in the context of Social Sciences, Arts and Humanities.

This year’s edition, “Go Green Go Social”, distinguished projects with social and/or environmental impact aligned with the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals. The two winners were the projects peggada (first prize) and Cartas com Ciência (second prize).

Cartas com Ciência, a spin-off of Native Scientist inspired by Letters to a Pre-Scientist, develops educational programmes of letter exchanges between Portuguese-speaking scientists around the world and students from unprivileged communities in the nine countries in the world that are Portuguese-speaking .

“The goal is to establish personalised and long-lasting conversations that not only promote science and language literacy, but that also help busting stereotypes and barriers associated with higher education and scientific careers, humanising science professionals for these students”, says Mariana Alves, who, together with Rafael Galupa, founded and directs Cartas com Ciência. Rafael adds that “We are very honoured to receive this prize, for which we counted with the support of some of our team members, Rita Neves and Hilarino da Luz. It’s great to see that entities like universities and banks are increasingly recognising the importance of socially and environmentally oriented projects”.

Besides the financial award, the winners will also benefit from a training programme to develop their business idea and receive support from the NOVA Mentor Network and the NOVA Innovation Centre.

About Native Scientist

Native Scientist is an award-winning European-wide non-profit organisation that promotes cultural diversity in science, education and society. Native Scientist provides science and language workshops, science communication training, and bespoke projects for various institutions, including schools, universities and embassies. The work developed connects pupils with scientists to foster science and language literacy through role modelling and science and language integrated learning. Founded in 2013, their work reaches over 1,200 pupils a year and they count with a network of over 1,000 international scientists.

About Cartas com Ciência

Cartas com Ciência fosters individual and long-lasting conversations between scientists and students from underserved communities in Portuguese-speaking countries. Through educational programmes of letter exchanges, Cartas com Ciência aims at promoting the value of knowledge and education, while mitigating prejudices around science and celebrating cultural diversity and language literacy. Founded in 2020 and having reached East Timor, Mozambique, Portugal and São Tomé and Príncipe, Cartas com Ciência is a spin-off of Native Scientist inspired by Letters to a Pre-Scientist. To know more, please visit the website: https://en.cartascomciencia.org/