The Técnico students Jorge Palha (Aerospace Engineering), Simão Nunes (Information Systems and Computer Engineering) and João Ramiro (Electrical and Computer Engineering) were part of the team that ranked 1st in COTEC i4.0 challenge. Hugo Mendonça, student at the Faculty of Engineering – University of Porto, was also part of the team that won direct access to the IoT Solutions World Congress, to be held in Barcelona.

The hackathon was part of COTEC Innovation Summit and lasted 24 hours. About 70 students participated in the event, which aimed to promote Industry 4.0 in the academic community. The winning team was challenged to participate in the event by JUNITEC. “We accepted the challenge because industry 4.0 is something very important and entirely new for us and we are stimulated by the unknown”, recalls Jorge Palha, the team’s spokesman. “Also the willingness to explore our real potential by testing your limits, such as perseverance and stress management, made us participate in this hackathon”, he adds.

“The strategy of our team was based on the trust we have in each other, so we decided to assign each case study to two members. We defined working time, that is, after every 4 intensive hours of work in pairs we stopped and discussed the results. Then we defined new paths and approaches to take from then on”, says Jorge Palha. This type of approach had been recommended to the team by one of the mentors and Jorge Palha believes that it played a decisive role in team’s victory. “Finally, we focused our presentation on the customer’s solution. Although we had analysed a large amount of data, we decided to highlight the most relevant results”, shares the Técnico student.

“Unlike the other teams, which focused on handling the data in different ways, we decided to focus on the customer’s goal, and not wasting time on irrelevant data”, points out Jorge Palha. In this way, the team was able to analyse, discuss and present the best solutions, which allowed them to reach the 1st place. “However, the fellowship, the mutual help and the good atmosphere were essential to get this excellent result” said the team’s spokesman. The award was delivered by the President of the Portuguese Republic.

“This award, like all others, reflect the three pillars of our junior company: Learning, Innovation and Entrepreneurship”, says Jorge Palha. “We owe much of our success to JUNITEC, which allowed us to grow and to challenge ourselves every day”, he adds.

The team won a trip to Barcelona and will have the opportunity to attend the IoT Solutions World Congress, one of the biggest industry events for the Internet of Things,. “This trip will open a lot of doors to us because we will be in contact with emerging technologies in this industry and we will have the opportunity to establish future partnerships”, says Jorge Palha.