MEGIE and LEGI students win the eighth edition of the E.Awards
The projects developed by students in entrepreneurship courses during this academic year were evaluated by Armilar, the Santander Foundation, and Accenture Portugal.
On June 24, another edition of the E.Awards was held at the TIC (Técnico Innovation Center), a competition that aims to recognize innovation and entrepreneurship projects developed by Técnico students enrolled in Entrepreneurship and Innovation courses.
With the goal of highlighting bold ideas and encouraging creative projects developed at IST, and after careful evaluation of the competing projects, a panel of judges (Técnico, Santander Foundation, Accenture, Armilar, Unicorn Factory) would select the winning teams at the end of the event, in categories such as best project, best poster pitch, and two honorable mentions. The partner companies for this eighth edition - Armilar, the Santander Foundation, and Accenture Portugal - funded the prizes awarded.
The “Best Project” award, presented by Santander and worth €5,000, went to STEP, created by Margarida Silva (Master’s in Engineering and Management of Innovation and Entrepreneurship), Liliana Xiao (Bachelor’s in Biomedical Engineering), and Pedro Rodrigues (Bachelor’s in Industrial Engineering and Management). The project focuses on “freezing of gait,” a phenomenon that affects some people with Parkinson’s disease, manifesting as a lack of coordination between the brain and muscle response during walking. STEP (Stimulation Technology to End Paralysis) is a wristband capable of detecting these episodes of freezing and interrupting them by applying a controlled vibration to the affected limb.
Four other groups received awards and honourable mentions from Armilar and Accenture, and LEGI also received recognition for one of these award-winning projects—TrashTalk, which consists of creating devices that provide municipalities with tools to monitor the capacity of waste containers in real time, so they can determine where collection teams need to intervene. The team, formed by Sofia António (Bachelor’s Degree in Industrial Engineering and Management), Jokubas Jasinskas (Bachelor’s Degree in Chemical Engineering), and João Taka (Bachelor’s Degree in Industrial Engineering and Management) won the “Best Poster” award, with a prize of 500€, sharing the podium with SisTAD (developed by Civil Engineering students).
The Department of Engineering and Management congratulates our students on this great achievement!