Last week the most exciting event of the year took place! Tec Labs’ Demo Day was an event full of inspiration, creativity and game-changing ideas. We now share with you the highlights for those of you who couldn’t make it.
We started off strongly with Professor Luís Carriço, Dean of Ciências ULisboa, stating the vision for a Faculty more open towards entrepreneurship matters and confident in translating science effectively.
The keynote speaker Balzhan Orazbayeva, Manager of Strategic Initiatives, at University Industry Innovation Network, highlighted the profound socioeconomic, cultural, and technological changes that are transforming higher education and the strengthening of relations between the Academy and companies that join forces to solve current business and societal problems.
At Roundtable “Beyond the obvious on internationalization of start-ups” Pedro Silveira, Key Account Manager at AICEP, Pedro Sacramento, Head of Projects and Operations at Startup Portugal and Jorge Santos, CEO at AquaInSilico discussed how startups wanting to go global, in non-traditional markets, can take advantage of opportunities. They all agreed that for entrepreneurs to be successful must know the market, have local partners and capitalize on the available support.
Cecília Rodrigues, ULisboa’s Vice-Dean for Research and Innovation and an entrepreneur herself highlighted the importance of academia and industry keep pushing partnerships for better science making.
After the introductory and more institutional session, there was time for the awaited visits to our start-ups and Ciências’ innovation projects, who were the real stars of the show! Our companies prepared some surprises, from escape rooms to fragrant samples testing, to energy data and brain activity monitoring and analytical labs’ visits.
From our innovation projects, we saw devices to improve blind people’s lifes, immunotherapies to target VIH and cancer, EdTech games, VR solutions to target chronic pain among many others.
At the same time, a parallel session was taking place, emphasizing the importance about the status of start-ups and scale-ups, an important recognition to apply for government programs and secure funding, by João Silva, Head of Data and Tech at Startup Portugal.
Circo Matemático project gathered people in the hallways and deceived minds with cool tricks with magic and mathematics mixed.
The incredible Brass Dass band took everyone out of their spaces into our courtyard, where food and drinks by Sem Espiga and some more music and fun by Brass Dass and Circo Matemático filled the space, not letting some rain drops kill the mood.
In the end, an heartfelt goodbye to Rita Tomé Rocha, our former Coordinator, set the tone for the ups and downs at Tec Labs and challenges ahead to continuously driving amazing science into successful businesses.
Last but not least, a warm thanks to our Media Partner – The Next Big Idea.
