Winners and Finalists

Startup Winner

Michelle Hesso

inclusio is a science-led, data-led diversity and inclusion platform.
Backed by Enterprise Ireland and global VCs, inclusio spun out of a University after four years in R&D. The platform combines technology, psychology, and Artificial Intelligence to measure company culture, track and action diversity and inclusion, linked to business KPI’s.
inclusio’s diversity insights captures many aspects of human differences, including neurodiversity, disability, and experience with accommodation in the workplace. We believe that having the right tool will lead to inclusion for all and thereby, create workplaces where people want to work.It is based on Cloud computing and Big Data technologies and aims to provide efficient and accurate support for the diagnosis of neuropsychiatric disorders. It statistically compares a patient’s biomedical image with a normalized, population representative database.

Bruno Almeida

IPLEXMED develops the first fast, portable, and connectable laboratory-grade diagnostic platform for at home and at point of care diagnosis of infectious agents.

Sofia Fernandes

Neroes is the only mental training platform that increases its users’ mental health and performance by controlling objects with their minds.

João Pedro Carvalho de Souza

The goal of this PhD is the design of an innovative modular software architecture for robotic grasping deployment. Designed to be easily editable and configurable and support several methods of control, planning and sensing, this novel grasping framework is aligned to the new industry demands of high response to the current market volatility. Additionally, it empowers the shop-floor operator focusing in well-being and productivity in accordance with human-centric pillar of Industry 5.0.

Academy Winner

Vitor Cunha

Creating novel and dynamic defense mechanisms against active threats to disrupt the attack process, detect adversarial action, and deliver on-demand mitigation, leveraging virtualized and softwarized networks (such as 5G and beyond).

Daniel Ferreira

Organ-on-a-chip technology promises to revolutionize the next generation of personalized medicine by providing a human-derived platform to study human disease. However, the fabrication of these devices is a time-consuming and expensive task. Here we propose a streamlined fabrication methodology to produce these devices within hours, using only benchtop equipment and off-the-shelf materials. The low cost of this technology could be the much-needed change towards affordable organ-on-a-chip technology, serving as a facilitator for its dissemination and potentially replacing the dependency on experimental animal models, in close alignment with the 3Rs principles.

Inclui Winner

Hugo Furtado

Orientation is still a fundamental challenge. For elderly people, bike riders and in particular blind and visually impaired people, finding the way when moving through public spaces can be daunting. waveOut is a navigation app that can guide you anywhere, simply by following sounds. It’s easy to use and it’s designed with diversity in mind, providing safer and independent mobility for everyone. We use augmented reality to place virtual waypoints in the real world, and spatial audio to hear the waypoints in a realistic way. Like this, people can find the way, by simply following a gentle drumbeat all the way until the destination. Without ever having to look at a screen.

Aviva Cohen

Empathic is a mobile app and API that helps non-verbal people to independently communicate up to 10 emotions. It uses AI to interpret short recordings of non-verbal vocalizations. Empathic supports people with communication difficulties due to autism, stroke, dementia, and a wide range of other conditions. Empathic is inclusively designed and built on a foundation of respect.

Afonso Cunha

Zoomguide makes the discovery of cities and cultural heritage sites more interactive and accessible through an AI-powered guide that augments the world.