Fraunhofer Portugal Challenge 2019 - Awarded Ideas

31.10.2019

 

This year’s special event celebrated the 10th edition of the Challenge and included, besides the contestants' presentations, a wrap up of the ten editions.

With presentations covering several topics, from the application of deep learning techniques for the automation of the diagnosis of epilepsy to the use of dry microwave imaging setup for breast cancer screening, there were numerous innovative ideas on display this Wednesday (30th of October), at the Closing Event of the Fraunhofer Portugal Challenge 2019. The event marked the close of the 10th edition of the contest, where the best ideas born in Portuguese Higher Education institutions were publicly recognized.

After the presentations of the six finalists, the jury selected the three placements (1st, 2nd and 3rd) in each category. In the PhD category, the 1st place winner was Vanessa Cunha Duarte – “Connecting the unconnected: The new era of satellites”, whose idea is a first-ever demonstration of a real-time photonic processor capable of processing 4 input signals and 5000 times smaller than an identical RF processor.

The 2nd place in the PhD category went to Ricardo Correia – “Passive Backscatter Sensors for IoT applications”, whose idea focus on the development of passive sensors based on low power communication (backscatter) with Wireless Power Transfer capabilities used in IoT applications. The 3rd place went to João Felício – “Microwave breast imaging using dry setup”, who proposed the use of dry microwave imaging (MWI) setup for breast cancer screening, as an alternative to current imaging modalities.

In the MSc category, the 1st place winner went to Catarina Lourenço – “Deep Learning for EEG Analysis in Epilepsy”,  who proposed the application of deep learning techniques for the automation of the diagnosis of epilepsy through the detection of interictal epileptiform discharges in the electroencephalogram (EEG).

The 2nd place was awarded to Gonçalo Marcelino – “A computational approach to the art of visual storytelling”, whose idea aims to help news editors in this process by studying and automatically creating visual storylines, through state of the art IA methodologies. The 3rd place went to Manuel Carneiro – “Comfortable Fabric-Based Headband for Forehead EEG Monitoring”, who proposed the implementation of a novel comfortable e-skin based EEG acquisition system with SOTA materials and methods for stretchable electronics and e-textile fabrication.


This was the 10th edition of the Fraunhofer Portugal Challenge. Every year, Fraunhofer Portugal AICOS boosts new scientific knowledge by awarding the students and researchers in Portuguese Universities that present the best ideas, based on thesis concluded and graded in the current or previous academic year.

The ideas submitted were assessed according to criteria such as innovation and originality, technical feasibility, practical applicability, and market potential and by a jury composed by members of Fraunhofer Portugal AICOS, namely Liliana Ferreira (Director), Hugo Gamboa (President of the scientific board) and Pablo Antonino (Head of the Embedded Software Engineering Department of Fraunhofer IESE). And by a panel of invited experts that included João José Pinto Ferreira (Dean of the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto), Clara Gonçalves (Innovation Stategist), Inês Campos Costa (Member of Board of Directors of the Portuguese Association of Young Entrepreneurs), Patrick Borg Hedley (Country Manager Lufthansa Group Portugal), Filipe Josué Oliveira (Head of Strategic Insight & Foresight at Sonae MC) and Ana Ferreira (IT Security Specialist and Researcher at CINTESIS and Winner of the first edition of the Fraunhofer Portugal Challenge).