Fernando Fischmann

Biography

Fernando Fischmann was born in Santiago. He attended the Grange School in Santiago and then the University of Chile, earning a graduate degree in biochemistry. He entered the estate agency business and began to invest in property, and in 1986 bought 60 hectares of land at the port of Algarrobo, on the coast of central Chile, with the plan to develop a holiday resort, now known as San Alfonso del Mar, around an artificial crystalline lagoon. This led him to develop a new process for maintaining the purity and clarity of water in large volumes and low costs. The lagoon opened in December 2006.

He founded Crystal Lagoons Corp. in 2007, and his project San Alfonso del Mar won that year the Guinness Record as the world's largest Crystalline Lagoon and since then he has been internationally honored for his career as an innovator and ambassador of international business. Recently he wins The Stevie® Award in its two categories: Innovator of the Year, for his sustainable vision for water usage, and for Innovation of the Year, for his water desalination technology that uses no energy.
Gold Stevie® Award “Innovator of the Year” and "Energy Industry Innovation of the Year" In addition, the London Business School, prestigious European academic organization, has nominated Fischmann for its 2017 international innovation contest, the "Real Innovation Award".

Meanwhile, in the United States highlights the distinctions awarded by authorities such as the Governor of Florida and the Beacon Council, an organization that gave the Keys to Miami. Recently, Crystal Lagoons awarded “Best New Business” by the Great Miami Chamber of Commerce at the 2015 International Business Leadership Awards. This recognition honors the globalized companies that are positively impacting Florida’s economy and generating employment in that state, boosting their business sectors and reaching standards of excellence in their operations.

Fischmann is currently one of the directors of Chilean Fraunhofer institute. Also, he has received many international awards, including businessman of the year, entrepreneur of the year, innovator of the year and the Guinness World Record for the San Alfonso del Mar project, among many others.

In 2015 his company Crystal Lagoons received the National Environment Award, which honors entities and sustainable projects that are committed to safeguarding the environment. Crystal Lagoons received this award for its “Sustainable Cooling Technology for Industrial Processes”. Also, Crystal Lagoons was awarded as the company with the Best Corporate Reputation in Chile’s Real Estate market. Award given by Mercos’ 2015 Business Evaluation Research that select Chile’s leading and most respected companies

In addition, he is director of the North America Chamber of Commerce (AmCham), and is a member of the advisory council of the business network Endeavor (non-profit). Estimates such as The Boston Consulting Group evaluated in 2008 his company's worth at 1.8 billion USD after a year and a half in operation. However, this estimate didn't include the industrial applications and expansion of Crystal Lagoons in this area, as these were developed later.

Artificial lagoons

The technology developed by Fischmann maintains large bodies of crystalline fresh salt or brackish water at a low cost. It is an automated process based on pulses and ultra sonic filtration. The use of large quantities of chlorine for purification is avoided and the energy usage of the filtration systems used in the lagoons' technology are the equivalent to 2% of the energy consumed by traditional pools with standard filtration systems.

The first lagoon to use such technology was in the holiday complex of San Alfonso del Mar and in the year 2007 the lagoon was identified by Guinness World Records as the largest crystal lagoon in the world - covering 8 hectares and containing 250,000,000 liters of water drawn from the Pacific Ocean. During the Summer, the lagoon is maintained at a temperature of 26C, nine degrees warmer than the adjacent sea.

In 2012 Crystal Lagoons opened a development at Sharm El Sheikh in Egypt, where the lagoon covers 12.5 hectares. The water from the lagoon in Sharm El Sheik's is supplied from underground wells in the desert. However, the firm will reach its third Guinness Record with the mega lagoon of 40 hectares located in the tourist development “Mohammed Bin Rashid City District One” in Dubai.

Fischman's company claims to be currently involved in over 600 projects in 60 countries.

Industrial applications

Fernando Fischmann has now turned his efforts on developing diverse industrial applications that will make it possible to solve problems for humanity, such as energy and water shortage, and the effects of environmental degradation.

Crystal Lagoons has developed applications of this technology for worldwide energy and water production systems.

This new industrial technology was granted patent protection by The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), via the selective fast track program for Green Technologies that represent an advance in sustainability. In fact, out of 1,500 patenting requests using this program in the U.S. only one was approved.

The firm’s industrial technology is claimed to be applicable for industrial cooling for thermoelectric power plants, data centers, concentrating photovoltaic plants, mining, purification of great volumes of water, infiltration of high quality water into underground aquifers to prepare for droughts, drinking water production for reverse osmosis processes, among others.