Carlos Duran, co-founder of the Hoy-voy driving school chain, has won the Young Entrepreneur award organized annually by the Association of Young Entrepreneurs of Catalonia (Aijec), becoming the best young Catalan entrepreneur of 2022. Duran and his commitment to modernizing and making a traditional sector like driving schools more accessible prevailed over Eva and Maria Martin, co-founders of Tiendeo, and Oscar Pierre, of Glovo.
Aijec wanted to recognize the work of Carlos Duran at the helm of the first low cost driving school. In 2012, Duran and his partner, Jordi López, changed the dynamics of the driving school world. Hoy-voy opted for a learning system based on artificial intelligence and a dynamic pricing model, similar to that of airlines, where students can choose the schedule of practical classes according to demand and price. Ten years later, the Barcelona-based chain, based on franchises, has become the largest in Spain with 39 centers spread throughout the country and a staff of more than 400 people.
If ten years ago, Hoy-voy won the award for Best Business Initiative, the second award annually given by Aijec this year has gone to Bold, an electric battery company for sectors such as aviation created by Bernat Carreras in 2019. In just two years, it already has a team of 70 people, an R&D center in the United Kingdom and facilities of more than 3,000 square meters in Montmeló.
The awards, which this year reached their 29th edition, were presented this Wednesday at the Institute of Ocular Microsurgery of Barcelona (IMO). More than 250 guests attended the event, including the main representatives of the economic and institutional world and the entrepreneurial ecosystem.
The president of Aijec, Ruben Sans Solsona, wanted to highlight the work of the young business fabric that has been working for years on the modernization of the economy, job creation and a new type of strategic leadership. He also demanded more support for entrepreneurial talent from all areas, "with more public-private collaboration, with an administration that truly promotes digitalization, that provides more aid, values SMEs and freelancers and the creation of a favorable environment for creating companies where legal certainty and stability prevail."
Other awards that have been presented include the Award for Best Professional Career, which went to Santiago Tarin, businessman, co-founder and former president of Aijec and promoter of the Young Entrepreneur Award. The Award for Business Linguistic Quality went to Electrofluxe, a company dedicated to the study, application and development of renewable energies, while the Award for Social Entrepreneurship went to FitPlanet, a company born in the midst of confinement that manufactures sportswear from waste. Finally, the Future Entrepreneur award, which recognizes the best entrepreneurial project developed by those under 18, went to the Dermoverse Project by 3rd and 4th year ESO students from Colegio Claret de Barcelona, creators of a mobile application that with just a photo can detect if a freckle or skin spot could become skin cancer.