At the end of a six-month process, L’Oréal Israel selected the outstanding student team that won the L’Oréal Innovation Brandstorm competition for 2024 - three students from the Coller Faculty of Management at Tel Aviv University, who are reinventing the future of beauty.
The theme of the competition was reinventing the future of beauty in the field of professional hair design through technological innovation.
The team from Tel Aviv University was selected from among 72 students from the leading universities in Israel: Hebrew, Reichman, Bar-Ilan, and Tel Aviv, who participated in L’Oréal's global open innovation competition.
The winning team will represent L'Oréal Israel in the international final to be held in London in June and will compete against 41 teams from leading universities from all over the world selected from 100,000 students from 64 countries. The winners will get to integrate as interns at the global headquarters of the L'Oréal Group in Paris.
In the global innovation competition of the L'Oréal Group, which is being held for the 32nd year, a team of judges from L'Oréal Israel executives selected the winning team to represent Israel in the global competition: the "3D Hair" team, Shira Lebenberg Attias, Michal Cohen and Nitai Sklar, undergraduate students in management at the Coller Faculty of Management at Tel Aviv University, under the guidance of Dr. Irit Nitzan and Ms. Maya Finkler.
The task of this year's competition was formulated in cooperation with the professional products division of L’Oréal Israel and challenged the students to reinvent the future of beauty in the field of hair design and care through technological innovation.
The winning team, 3D Hair, presented an innovative, technological, and environmentally valuable solution, which allows printing hair in 3D printers, using secondary hair waste collected from hairdressers. Pure keratin without traces of DNA will be produced from the hair waste, which will be used as ink for the 3D printers. The 3D printing will produce quality hair, in any color, type, and thickness for the production of hair extensions and wigs.
The international open innovation competition of the L'Oréal Group - Brandstorm, is one of the largest competitions in the world for students and has been held for 32 years. Since the competition was founded, more than 700,000 students have participated.
At the final in Israel, the students presented their innovative solutions to the panel of judges that included Elie Sagiv, CEO of L'Oréal Israel; Libby Kazes-Angel, VP of Human Resources; Ilan Naftaly, CEO of the Professional Division, Gali Lev, VP of Marketing and Digital, and Yaniv Levy, Digital Director of the Professional Division.
According to Sagiv: "This is the 15th year that I have been a judge in L’Oréal's Brandstorm global innovation competition both in Israel and abroad and I am happy to see that the level of projects presented by the students in Israel meets the highest international standards both in terms of creative thinking and technological innovation and in building a viable, sustainable business model. I congratulate all the participants and especially the winning team that will represent Israel in the world finals in London and I am sure that they will do so with honor.”
Dr. Irit Nitzan, advisor of the winning team, from the Coller Faculty of Management at Tel Aviv University, stated: "I am happy for the choice of the 3D Hair team, which developed and presented a groundbreaking solution that combines technological innovation and sustainability and provides an answer to an essential need of consumers."
This article was written in cooperation with L’Oréal