This summer, the European Innovation Academy (EIA) once again concluded its Innovation and Entrepreneurship Bootcamp with great success, adding more than 450 new alumni to its global network. The intensive three-week programme, held in Portugal, once again featured Técnico students. The fourteen selected to embark on this adventure received scholarships awarded by Santander Foundation and had the opportunity to develop innovative startups that solve real problems. We highlight two teams that earned a spot in the EIA Top Teams 2024: the AnkleWise project, with the participation of Luca Gusella, a Master’s student in Energy Engineering and Management, and Miguel Joaquim Roque Fernandes, a Master’s student in Biomedical Engineering, and the CriticAI project, with the participation of André Ribeiro, a master’s student in Applied Mathematics and Computation at Técnico.

The AnkleWise project, a wearable device that measures ankle muscle use in high-performance athletes, adjusting posture to prevent injuries before they occur, was awarded the Nixon Peabody Innovation Patent Award, which will allow the team to protect their intellectual property. Luca Gusella and Miguel Fernandes’ team was also selected for the CityXperiment programme, a two-month accelerator in partnership with Porto Municipality, where they will work with renowned institutions, such as the São João University Hospital Centre, to validate the solution with medical specialists.

On his experience at EIA, Luca Gusella emphasised the diversity within the teams and the ‘power’ this gives them, saying “it was impressive what you can achieve when you have people with the right skills complementing each other”.

André Ribeiro was part of the team that created CriticAI, a platform that aims to help professors integrate critical thinking exercises into their lessons. It thus aims to address professors’ lack of time and resources to prepare students for future challenges.