Another edition of the Altice International Innovation Award (AIIA), the national reference event in the area of technological innovation, with the highest award in Portugal, has come to an end. This 5th edition took place last November 23rd and there were two winners, one from each category:
Academy Category
Collision Avoidance on Unmanned Aerial Vehicles using Deep Neural Networks, from the PhD student Dário Pedro was the winner project. It is a conceptual framework focused on unmanned aerial vehicles, autonomous and networked, for collision avoidance with small objects, seeking to achieve acceptable levels of safety and reliability.
Startup Category
SenseGlove project, proposed by the startup Glooma, consists of a home and portable medical screening device that complements the conventional breast self-examination and is connected to a mobile application.
This year’s edition of the AIIA had a novelty, the awarding of the “Included by the Altice Foundation” prize, with a monetary value of 15.000 euros. The award, which aims to reward works that make information and communication technologies available for digital inclusion, as well as technological accessibility solutions at the service of citizens, was given to the Incluudo project, an inclusive platform that enables media subtitling, translation, transcription, audio description and inclusive audio. In addition to this award, the Altice Foundation also decided to give an honourable mention to the RestartUs project, an online platform that promotes the social and financial inclusion of people on low incomes. Additionally, the National Innovation Agency (ANI) associated itself with the Altice International Innovation Award through the BfK Awards. The distinction was awarded to the Smartex.ai project, considered, in this edition, the best project born from Research and Development (R&D) activities, namely collaborative.
Alcino Lavrador, General Manager of Altice Labs and member of the jury, stated during his speech that these initiatives aim to “help develop the entrepreneurial and creative attitude of the portuguese and of this new generation, which promises a lot”, but the choice of the winners was a difficult task. “It was quite difficult, because it’s always difficult to choose, but we managed to make a selection and the finalists were really very good. It was also very difficult to select the winner of each of the categories, because they are very relevant value propositions.”
Alexandre Fonseca, Executive President of Altice Portugal and President of the jury, said it was “very important that other companies follow the example of Altice Portugal and reward entrepreneurship, innovation, talent and the ability to create. I think this is the way to build an increasingly digital Portugal.”
Since 2016, the year in which the first edition of the Altice International Innovation Award was held, more than 380 applications have been made, representing a total prize of more than 365.000 euros. The six finalist projects for this year’s edition were chosen from 80 applications. The 1st place in the Start-ups category was awarded a pecuniary prize of 50.000 euros and the possibility of carrying out a pilot (proof of concept) with the Altice Group for a minimum duration of 9 months. The winner of the Academia category was awarded a monetary value of 25.000 euros.
The award, which aims to reward works that make information and communication technologies available for digital inclusion, as well as technological accessibility solutions at the service of citizens, was given to the Incluudo project, an inclusive platform that enables media subtitling, translation, transcription, audio description and inclusive audio. In addition to this award, the Altice Foundation also decided to give an honourable mention to the RestartUs project, an online platform that promotes the social and financial inclusion of people on low incomes. Additionally, the National Innovation Agency (ANI) associated itself with the Altice International Innovation Award through the BfK Awards. The distinction was awarded to the Smartex.ai project, considered, in this edition, the best project born from Research and Development (R&D) activities, namely collaborative.