What began as a school science project in Colombia ended up receiving a proposal from the Fundación de Bill Gates. However, Mariana Perez, the young woman behind stood her ground and said “no”.
Pérez developed a mechanical system capable of clean polluted air with 96% efficiency, recounts the Colombian portal Cambio. It can clean up to 70 tons of contaminants per day.
The name of Mariana Pérez’s company is Ecolair.
In addition, it can transform the polluting material and, after mixing it with plastic, metallic and organic waste, create tiles and bricks.
“We work with public and private clients,” Pérez explained to Cambio. “We are hired by (the municipality of) Girardota.”
“The company was born as a family idea since I was in school, but it evolved in a very nice way. We made prototypes on an industrial scale and now it is produced in industrial series. Both the machine and the substance with which it works are protected with an invention patent”, he adds.
Bill Gates’ offer that Mariana Pérez rejected
At one point, Mariana Pérez sought capital to promote her project in Colombia. She entered a call for Microsoft Foundation, Created by Bill Gates to meet the goal of being carbon neutral by 2030.
Pérez thought that he would only gain investment, but the Bill Gates Foundation wanted to buy the project.
“We receive a summons for a meeting with the CEO of financing and sustainability and he tells us ‘Well, how much is the company worth?’ We are left in one piece.” affirms Mariana Pérez, “because that was never the objective. We had signed up looking for financing, not wanting to sell the company. We found it dishonest and withdrew.”
“The goal of us It’s not the money.” stressed the young Colombian. “We like to see the project running. We were afraid that if we sold the project it would stay on paper, and that doesn’t make sense. They even told us that if we sold them a machine and they replicated it, but I didn’t agree”.
Today, Ecolair continues to promote its work in Colombia. Last January they gave start of operation of its air treatment pilot plant. And this is just beginning.