Lina Marcela Cataño Bedoya

"At the end of 2010 Colombia was crossing the hardest season of winter rains registered in the last years. It was then, when Lina Marcela Cataño, student of product design engineering at the Administration, Finance and Technology School (EAFIT), decided to look for solutions - working from her specialty field - the threat that hundreds of thousands of persons were suffering: the poorest and most vulnerable of the country, whose houses were flooded systematically with the rise of the waters exposing them to rough weather and the risk of contracting infectious illnesses.

For these situations, along with her partners Andrés Walker and Sergio Molina, she designed a prototype of floating platforms, on which they might build homes resistant to the floods. These houses, which rise in the water and settle again on the area once the flood disappears are not only thought to be functional and lasting, but also obtainable for the least wealthy pockets. Cataño is working on the development of new materials and productive processes that reduce the final prices to the limits marked by the Government for social interest and priority homes (19.000 dollars aprox.).

As soon as the construction of the first functional model (a house of wood, immunized, with capacity for six persons, that was floating on a metal platform, meshes and re – used plastic bottles) is finished, the young woman decided to initiate, along with Walker, the company Utopica-EAFIT; their target has been to develop, on a large scale, her housing solutions. At present, Utopica is negotiating with many suppliers of raw material, Colombian public services companies and humanitarian international programs with those who expect to carry its technology to the most punished areas hit by the floods."