In 2022, INOVA+ promoted the first edition of the INOVA+ Award, having distinguished six national projects of scientific and business excellence, as well as the two personalities of the year in each of these categories. In all, more than 30,000 euros were awarded in cash prizes and services.

José Neves, CEO of Farfetch and president of the Foundation that bears his name, and Fernando Lobo Pereira, Prof. doctor from the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto, were distinguished as personalities of the year in the INOVA+ Award, which aims to distinguish scientific and business excellence in national innovation. The prize also distinguished the researchers Catarina Moreira, Joana Rosa and João Pereira, as well as the companies Ethiak, Neutroplast and MyGreenApp, distributing a total of 30,000 euros in prizes.

With the High Patronage of His Excellency, the President of the Republic, the INOVA+ Award is organized by the consultant and has as partners the National Innovation Agency (ANI), the Council of Deans of Portuguese Universities (CRUP), the Conselho Coordenador dos Institutos Superiores Politécnicos (CCISP) and AIP – Associação Industrial Portuguesa.

The award established by the consultant INOVA+ aims to support and encourage innovation in Portugal, distinguishing and rewarding ideas, solutions and technologies of scientific excellence, as well as projects of business excellence, capable of responding to the main European priorities in the areas of Artificial Intelligence, Sustainability of natural resources and ecosystems and Digital solutions for resilient cities.

The jury brought together representatives from the academic and business world, consisting of Eurico Neves, Chairman of INOVA+, Goreti Sales, Associate Professor at FCTUC, Lillian Barros, Researcher at CIMO-IPB, Gil Gonçalves, Professor at FEUP and Verónica Orvalho, Founder and CEO from DIDIMO.

Artificial intelligence distinguishes between ethical hackers and eye movements

The INOVA+ Prize for Scientific Excellence awarded three cash prizes worth 5,000 euros while the INOVA+ Prize for Business Excellence awarded three prizes of the same amount for Consulting services in the European application process.

In the Artificial Intelligence category, Ethiak, represented by Jorge Monteiro, was distinguished with the Business Excellence award for the Ethically-Driven Security For the Digital Age project, which aims to offer an autonomous cybersecurity solution in a black box approach, through the use of Artificial Intelligence and ethical hackers. The project materializes in the symbiotic platform where ethical hackers test the vulnerabilities of solutions, helping organizations to prevent cybercrime.

In the same category, Catarina Moreira was distinguished with the Scientific Excellence award for the XENIA project – eXplainable Enhanced diagnostics Interactively through AI, which investigates how information from the recording of eye movements can be used to teach a machine how radiologists analyze and classify the images. The project aims to create human centric Artificial Intelligence architectures to instruct radiologists with little experience to analyze X-ray images.

Sustainability recognizes ocean waste recovery and cellular aquaculture

Project: Environments built for an active, safe and healthy life
Promoting Entity: Kentra Technologie
Consortium: 20 partners
Scope of the project: Investigate, develop and demonstrate in a real environment the use of a set of “active & healthy life” solutions that promote the availability of intelligent products and services to support the proximity and health care network. Under the motto “Live well and healthy in your home and with the quality you deserve”, solutions and a new concept of evolutionary habitat will be promoted, which transforms and adapts, accompanying all stages of life.

Digital Solutions rewards decarbonization app and RFID geolocation tool

In the Digital solutions for resilient cities category, Pedro Teixeira, from MyGreenApp, Lda, was distinguished with the Business Excellence award for the MyGreenApp project – A holistic digital guide for your decarbonized life, an app designed to help people and organizations reduce their impact ecological through a simple and accessible tool to monitor and offset your carbon footprint.

In the same category, João Pereira was distinguished with the Scientific Excellence award for the SmartRFID project – Long-Range Smart RFID Location for Resilient Cities, an innovative long-distance RFID location system to locate people, animals or products in residential, commercial and industrial.

Special distinctions for Fundação José Neves and posthumous award to Lobo Pereira

The INOVA+ Award ceremony took place in the Auditorium of the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto, following the conference “25 years of Innovation in Portugal”, which debated the State of the Nation with regard to innovation in Portugal in the last two decades and a half, as well as the challenges and opportunities facing the national innovation community.

The jury of the INOVA+ Award also awarded a special distinction of Business Excellence to businessman José Neves, from the José Neves Foundation, for his remarkable business career and initiatives promoted by the Foundation in promoting skills in the digital area, with emphasis on the innovative program “Income Share Agreement (ISA)” created to support the Portuguese in accessing courses and training that allow them to acquire skills for the future, generating more qualified HR and a more competitive national business fabric.

The jury also attributed a special and posthumous distinction, of Scientific Excellence to Professor Fernando Lobo Pereira of the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto, for his remarkable research career, scientific production, participation in R&D projects, national and international, and panels evaluation in the fields of control systems, autonomous systems, as well as control applications in mobile robotics, power and manufacturing systems.

The ceremony was attended by Isabel Ferreira, Secretary of State for Regional Development, Diogo Gomes de Araújo, Director of Capacity of the National Innovation System at ANI, Joana Resende, Vice-Rector of the University of Porto, and Eurico Neves, Chairman of INOVA+.

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