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“The overriding aim is to promote
past participants. The latest challenge, meanwhile, centred on helping increase the reach and impact of Chilean startup Wheel the World, which connects travellers with specific accessibility needs to destinations, hotels and tours. Following two months of activities, the challenge culminated in a pitch competition with seven student teams. The winners, featuring two students from Universidad Andrés Bello and one each from Universidad Privada del Norte in Peru and Universidad EAN in Colombia, presented an idea that allows travellers to share phone recordings of short trips on the company’s platform to alleviate uncertainty about the accessibility of different locations. “Knowing that we were working alongside such a large international network made us feel part of something meaningful,” commented Universidad Andrés Bello student María Steyaert Birgit on behalf of the winning team, adding that it was “interesting to see how people from such different backgrounds could come together for the same purpose: to create real solutions with social impact.” TBD internationalisation, using technology and the COIL methodology to remove barriers to collaboration and mobility”
EXPANDING COIL CHALLENGE CLOSE TO REACHING 10,000 STUDENTS
has now engaged 9,600 students and more than 150 teachers from 20 different universities. “It has been an intense job, with great learning experiences and a commitment to take on more ambitious challenges,” said X-PRO director Andrés Tolosa, who is also the director of the international relations office at the Universidad Andrés Bello’s Faculty of Economics and Business, which developed the initiative. Its overriding aim is to promote internationalisation, using technology and the COIL methodology to remove barriers to collaboration and mobility. Each X-Pro Challenge revolves around a company case study, with US clothing firm Patagonia and sustainable products company LateChile among
SCHOOL Faculty of Economics and Business Universidad Andrés Bello, Chile
business challenge initiative developed at Universidad Andrés Bello is said to have
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become the largest example of collaborative online international learning (COIL) in Latin America. The latest iteration of Desafío X-PRO , or the X-PRO Challenge, is its 11th instalment since it was set up in 2020; it brought together 1,090 students and 50 teachers from 16 universities across the region to tackle a task centred on inclusive tourism. In total, the initiative
7 Business Impact • ISSUE 1 • 2026
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