The Bicester Collection Bestows ‘Unlock Her Future’ Prizes

MILAN – At The Bicester Collection, giving back is as important as shopping.

In 2022, the group, which comprises 12 shopping destinations operated by Value Retail, in Europe and China, and a new one in the U.S. to open in the fall, launched the Unlock Her Future Prize. This is an annual global initiative that seeks to identify and support women change-makers with ventures under three years old and with less than $1 million in revenue, and which aim to drive sustainable social, cultural and environmental impact across their communities and beyond.

The prize is looking to advance gender equality and celebrates women from a different geographical region each year. In 2023 it was focused on the Middle East and North Africa and this year it’s Latin America, where The Bicester Collection has joined forces with Tecnológico de Monterrey; Ashoka Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean; and Dalia Empower as its regional partners.

Three winners each receive financial support — a grant up to $100,000 to launch and scale their start-up; human capital support including bespoke mentorship and leadership coaching with international experts; education including  an entrepreneurship program with a prestigious regional academic institution, and global access to The Bicester Collection, its partners, affiliates, and industry contacts including a robust alumnae program and media exposure.

The prize was bestowed in Madrid at the Galería de Cristal on Tuesday, revealing the winners.

A prize was bestowed to Thamires Pontes, from  Brazil, who created Phycolabs, a biomaterial start-up that develops textile fibers from seaweeds as an eco-friendly alternative to petrochemical materials, as they grow rapidly and can be cultivated in tropical regions without pesticides or arable land.

Chantal Khoueiry, chief cultural officer at The Bicester Collection, said this sustainable approach offers a renewable alternative to traditional fabrics, promoting biodiversity conservation. Phycolabs targets business-to-business partnerships, producing yarns for fashion and home decor brands.

Another prize went to Valentina Agudelo, from Colombia, and her Salva Health, which develops portable devices with AI to analyze breast tissue, helping detect breast cancer early and making it accessible to women in remote areas.

A third prize was bestowed to two winners, equally divided between Annie Rosas, from Mexico, and Leydi Cruz, from Bolivia.

Rosas has set up Bluekali, a social enterprise utilizing technology to clean oceans and rivers, addressing challenges in recycling plant material collection and uplifting scavenger jobs.

Cruz has created Agrimet, which helps farmers improve irrigation and grow more crops by giving personalized advice and data subscriptions, making them better prepared for climate challenges.

Here, Khoueiry discusses the development and objectives of the project.

WWD: How and why was the Unlock Her Future prize created?

Chantal Khoueiry:  I’ll just start with really contextualizing what The Bicester Collection stands for, beyond the shopping experience, and everything you know about our villages. Our mission is to really make the lives of others better, be it our brand partners, our guests, our people, and in the context of what we’re talking about, our communities. So really, from our very, very beginning, supporting women, supporting children, has always been core to what we did. Our do-good philanthropic program really unites all our villages around this vision, which is to unlock the future of women and children wherever they are born. And we do this really in three key ways. One is charity partnerships, and every one of our villages supports a local charity by raising awareness, raising engagement, and raising funds. And when you think that we welcome about 50 million visitors across our platform, this is an incredible way to engage our guests with a broader purpose.

The second pillar is advocacy, how can we use our voice, our platform, really to bring at the forefront of the agenda the issues that surround women and children, against child trafficking, for example, and other big challenges.

And then, finally, innovation. How do we use the energy, the creativity, to address one angle of the issues that surround women? We chose to really focus on the funding gap as only 3 percent of women-led businesses receive funding. And we know that if women and men participated equally, in entrepreneurship, the global GDP could rise by between 3 to 6 percent [according to Boston Consulting Group]. That’s approximately $5 trillion, which is just massive. And we know that when women are social entrepreneurs, they really impact their communities, they invest in children, they invest in education and this has a ripple effect in their communities. That’s why we really launched the Unlock Her Future Prize to really identify those women game changers from around the world, going beyond the direct footprint of our villages.

WWD: In what other way is the prize different from others?

C.K.:  It’s very different because it’s very difficult to invest at the stage of ideas. Most of the prizes you have out there are for more established businesses. We work with local partners, although the prize is global, but it’s really tailored to each region. The prize is substantial, up to $100,000 per winner. And then they get everything that comes with the prize — mentorship, educational support, leadership training, global exposure. It’s the holistic approach, really supporting them in not only launching their business, but scaling it. From the MENA region, we’ve had some incredible winners. And now we are in LATAM, we’ve received over 954 applications and 108 semi-finalists.

WWD: How did you decide bestowing the prize to Thamires Pontes and Phycolabs?

C.K.: She really is quite interesting, harnessing the potential of red seaweed is incredible and I think for the fashion industry it’s quite an interesting angle. Valentina [Agudelo] is focusing on good health and well-being and her objective is to make her breast cancer detector accessible to women in remote areas that do not have access to medical, so it’s a very incredible proposition.

WWD: Is the idea for The Bicester Collection to produce some of the garments with the fabric realized by the winner?

C.K.: As part of the prize, I think it’s really super important to sit down with every winner and work through what their business plan is about and looking at ways to support that, to  do whatever it takes to give each one the exposure they need and the support to scale their business proposition. It’s what we’ve done with our incredible women last year. The prize is just the beginning of the journey with them.

There is one other thing that I would like to mention. For the first time there was quite an interesting application that came through from a young girl from Guatemala, Kristal Del Valle, who just turned 17 and obviously does not fit in the criteria of the prize, which is minimum 18 years old. However, what we found out is that she’s on to something very interesting, and we decided to give a young Changemaker Award, recognizing an incredible young talent, and her business proposition is focused on education using the power of artificial intelligence and avatars.