The TecStorm brand grows every year. The event is organised by JUNITEC – Junior Enterprises at Instituto Superior Técnico, and combines technology with entrepreneurship, encouraging university students creativity and problem-solving skills. The result: brilliant ideas capable of making a positive impact on society. The event took place online last weekend, 26th to 28th February, and brought together 106 participants from 15 Portuguese universities.

“The final outcome is very positive. The TecStorm team made a great effort to go live ensuring high quality and to keep the spirit of the previous editions, even at a distance”, says Vera Silva, TecStorm’21 marketing manager. “The online format has altered the participant’s experience, but it also gave us the possibility to invest in the entrepreneurial component of the event”, points out the Técnico student. Despite the different circumstances, the online format did not alter the organisation’s ambition and effort to “improve the quality of the projects and encourage the ambition of the participants”, stressed Vera Silva.

As in previous years, the event was attended bt the Minister of Science, Technology and Higher Education, professor Manuel Heitor, who praised TecStorm and JUNITEC.

Several projects were presented in different areas, such as: informal caregivers, mental health, classroom learning, traffic optimisation, energy reuse, housing security, among many others.

Over 42 hours, the teams were able to develop their ideas, creating prototypes, designing business models and preparing their pitch. More than 6 thousand euros were at stake. The winning teams were: Urban Farmers (“Sustainable Development” category), TecWizards (“5G – The Network of the Future” category), and MindSet (“Energetic Solutions” category).

The “Grow In” project developed by Urban Farmers aims to democratize and decentralize agriculture through a modular system of intelligent agriculture. The system includes a sensor and control supported by Artificial Intelligence, accessible through an intuitive graphical interface on mobile or desktop.

The “Aircube” project won the Vodafone award, which consists of an innovative solution that enables the delivery of goods to your home using electric and autonomous drones in large urban and residential centers.

The Técnico team – MindSet – stood out in the “Energetic Solutions” category. The team developed the “Helios” project, an intelligent scale capable of monitoring the amount of available gas in the canister, as well as detecting gas leak from canisters.

A refreshed and improved edition

Even before the even started, JUNITEC provided the TecStorm teams with technical and strategic mentoring sessions. All teams had access to diverse training and digital prototyping tools, creation of web-app creation and data management. The technical material necessary for the development of the project was made available by the organisation, and access to all information was granted earlier than ever before.

“We had an interaction with the teams that started long before the event began. We created a Slack workspace to facilitate communication and promote dialogue. We had a space exclusively dedicated to participants shared experiences, whose membership exceeded our expectation”, says Vera Silva. In addition, the JUNITEC team created a ‘spaceship’ that remained active during the 42-hour competition, where the participants “could always find staff members to support and help them on their projects, and also to relax and play games”, stresses the TecStorm Marketing manager.

“Everyone, including our Main Sponsors, recognised a significant improvement on projects“, says Vera Silva.

Also the number of awards has increased this year. An award was also delivered to the 2nd place, to the teams that presented the best pitch and to the best prototype. “All finalists will have the oportunity to have a meeting with the business incubator Demium, so that they can project their future together”, adds Vera Silva.

“There are no barriers to successful events! Covid-19 has shown us that there are no limits, as long as we know how to reinvent ourselves”, stresses Vera Silva.