Growing social and environmental impact through our HL BaSE Catalyst workshop
In November 2023, the firm held another HL BaSE Catalyst legal workshop as an in-person event in our Madrid office together with our client Ford.
Over 20 Hogan Lovells volunteers worked alongside in-house counsel from Ford to advise three social enterprises:
- Medea Wellbeing, a mobile app for professionals to improve detection, prevention and intervention of mental health in patients
- Loop Diagnostics, a biotech company that develops a diagnostic tool for sepsis to reduce disease severity and mortality rates
- Coometas, a mobile app to deliver food to NGOs and fight against food waste
Gabriel Ramas, Founder and CEO Comeetas: “As an entrepreneur who is receiving pro bono advice from the Hogan Lovells team for the second time, I would like to highlight first and foremost the professionalism of the team and the attention paid to respond to the legal needs that arise. Specifically, I think it's great that in an afternoon session like the ones in the workshop, it's possible to give it a first pass over everything, which in turn already provides partial answers and a certain peace of mind. On the other hand, it allows you to set out the foundations of the next steps, meet the team in person (it is always appreciated beyond exchanges on screens) and have a good time meeting new people and other entrepreneurial teams. The service you provide is highly valued, the quality of a great firm at the disposal of entrepreneurial projects that still cannot afford such a service.”
Zara Zangri, CEO Medea Wellbeing: “For a social impact startup, having the opportunity to receive advice like the one we had during the workshop is unimaginable. In our case, it is essential to highlight that the workshop was very useful to resolve some outstanding doubts of great importance for our next validation milestone, something that we expected from the experience in some way. To our surprise, your team went above and beyond, getting down to business and working hard throughout the three hours of the workshop to make the most of the time. They provided us with a live correction of some clauses in the software that will be key to marketing. The people involved showed immense commitment to the project, making us feel like a client. We are infinitely grateful for the opportunity and for the great human warmth shown by us.”
Eduard Guerrero, Loops Diagnostics: “Our feedback of the program is very positive. As a Spanish startup within the health sector, we have participated in several workshops, accelerators and entrepreneurship programs at a national and European level (even some in the USA) and we have not found any similar to this workshop. in all these programs, the legal part of the companies was approached as something disconnected from the rest of the company's departments. However, the BaSE Catalyst workshop is the only one in which we have been able to interact with different legal departments that affect to different aspects of the business.”
Miguel de la Fuente, Ford España: “Having the opportunity to participate in this pro-bono workshop enabled me to get to know social projects very innovative that also had the ultimate goal to improve the society we are living in. Particularly, I had the opportunity to get involved in the team that advised Coometas, which is a solution that helps to digitize the food aid of social action and makes digital technology available to entities that provide aid to people who need it. As always, it’s been a very positive and enriching experience that enabled me to know innovative and transformative projects as well as helped me to work along with Hogan Lovells’ lawyers to advise on matters which are out of our daily tasks.”
Javier Vives, Ford España: “This experience has been really interesting, not only from a personal but also from a professional point of view. From a personal point of view, I had the opportunity to share the time with social entrepreneurs in a great project that has had a positive impact in improving mental health treatments in patients. In addition to this, I shared the time with Hogan Lovells’ lawyers, with whom I do not work very often and they were incredible people showing a great positive attitude and a personal dedication. I always feel myself better person and lawyer after participating in these workshops and I truly recommend this experience to anyone for the enthusiasm and the great work you do for this pro bono projects.”