Tucuxi was the winning team of Invent For The Planet (IFTP), held at SENAI CIMATEC in Salvador. Their soil sensor project will now compete in the national stage, aiming for a place in the global competition.
The Invent For The Planet (IFTP) concluded its 2026 edition in Bahia, reinforcing the role of collaborative innovation as a tool for learning, experimentation, and transformation. At IFTP, teams from around the world accepted the challenge of developing solutions to complex and urgent problems, connecting technical knowledge, systemic vision, and applied creativity.
The edition held at SENAI CIMATEC immersed participants in a practical experience of building solutions to interconnected and highly relevant contemporary problems. This edition’s challenges focused on the need to rethink food systems, a theme that demands an integrated view of sustainability, resilience, equity, resource scarcity, waste, and trust in supply chains.
The challenges presented to the teams came from broad and interdependent fronts, demanding more than just creativity. The IFTP requires investigative skills, prioritization, critical analysis, and the ability to translate complex problems into viable proposals.
It was three days of intense and multidisciplinary immersion, combining an idea marathon with the experience of purpose-driven innovation, where participants were invited to define problems and create solutions. According to the coordinator of the Salvador edition, Laura Gurgel, “this required context analysis, defining specific areas of focus, organizing hypotheses, collaborative construction, and developing proposals capable of articulating social, environmental, and economic impacts. The format stimulated an applied learning experience where the value lay not only in the final solution but also in the process of investigating, testing, refining, and communicating ideas as a team.”
CIMATEC also brought together a group of mentors who, throughout the three days, guided the work until it reached the evaluation of the quartet of judges. The teams and mentors were able to define, redefine, change course, and present the final projects in a concrete dynamic of innovation, connecting academic knowledge, practical vision, and strategic thinking.
According to Laura Gurgel, “the overall evaluation of the event was highly positive, highlighting the quality of the mentoring, the learning generated, the dynamics of team building, and the power of the exchange environment.” The IFTP coordinator in Bahia emphasized that “many participants had their first contact with an event of this format, which demonstrates IFTP’s ability to welcome new audiences without losing depth, technical rigor, and sense of purpose.”
In the end, the four presented projects took center stage, delivering their pitches, answering questions, and receiving analysis from the judges. Fernanda Becevelli (Sebrae), Lais Valverde (CIMATEC), Suzana Paranhos (CIMATEC), and Josias Junior (Banco do Nordeste) comprised the judging committee, which also provided important comments to help each project improve.
The initiative is part of an international, collaborative, and expanding network since 2018, bringing together universities, students, professors, mentors, and judges around global challenges. This edition led the program to achieve impressive numbers: 32 participating universities, more than 1000 students, more than 180 mentors, more than 140 judges*, and more than 175 professors, totaling more than 1500 innovation and entrepreneurship agents mobilized in different territories.
IFTP projects addressed resilience in food production, especially in the face of the impacts of climate change and instabilities affecting supply; losses, waste, and inefficiencies at different stages of the chain; access, equity, and inclusion of small producers in more sustainable and fair markets; the nexus between water, energy, and food, highlighting the mutual dependence between essential resources; transparency and trust in food systems, with attention to traceability and credibility; and the construction of circular material systems centered on the home, focusing on reuse, conscious consumption, and impact reduction.
The program organizers believe that the continued growth in participation each year reinforces the strength of the movement and the reach of the purpose that guides the initiative: “The Sun Never Sets On Innovation.”
