“Anyone who knows me knows that I rarely run out of words, but I’m very close to that point—I don’t think you have any idea how much this will help us”. According to one of the winners, this showcases the significant impact of Lab2Market, a programme that helps bring innovative ideas developed at Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, to market, supporting the development and incubation of projects through various phases. The closing ceremony took place on 24 June at the Técnico Innovation Center powered by Fidelidade.
The winning team consists of Filipe Altoe (who made the remarks) and Sérgio Pinto, both researchers at Instituto de Engenharia de Sistemas e Computadores – Investigação e Desenvolvimento (INESC-ID), who developed VEREFY, an artificial intelligence (AI)-based algorithm that predicts which disinformation narratives are most likely to go viral. The model’s goal is to provide fact-checkers with predictive and timely information, enabling them to intervene before disinformation shapes public opinion.
As has become a tradition in recent years, the winning team received the António Brandão Vasconcelos Award, named after the founding professor of Lab2Market, in the amount of 3,500 euros. VEREFY now joins the ranks of the ten winning projects from this acceleration programme, which has already mentored and supported 50 teams, involving over 150 participants, ten startups, and more than one million euros in funding.
These are “significant figures” for “a very important and strategic programme for the School,” said the president of Técnico, Rogério Colaço, during the event. “We support students’ ideas that need to move from the lab to the market—it’s a landmark event for those who participate in it, and it would only be possible with the support of NTT Data”, he added, referring to the programme’s sponsor, for whom he asked for a round of applause during his speech at the event.
For Tiago Barroso, CEO of NTT Data Portugal, “it’s always a pleasure to be back [at Técnico]”, since the School “played a very important role in his career”. In fact, Tiago Barroso argues that Lab2Market “is a way to give back to Técnico a part of what it gives us”, referring to the many “extremely talented” alumni that NTT Data hires every year.
Alongside VEREFY, the tenth edition of Lab2Market supported the development of three other projects:
Dexum | Técnico and the Champalimaud Foundation – A virtual reality (VR) training environment for physical therapy rehabilitation of motor coordination in stroke victims, particularly fine motor skills in the hands, using clay sculpting games. It is capable of detecting independent movements of each finger, providing a more precise response to user commands.
Embedded AI | Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (DEEC) – An AI “brain” that runs machine learning algorithms on low-power, low-cost systems, enabling the use of AI in more affordable devices.
Sheep4wall | Civil Engineering Research and Innovation for Sustainability (CERIS) – What can be done with shorn wool that is not of sufficient quality to be sold for textile purposes? Much of it ends up being incinerated. This project proposes repurposing this sustainable raw material as a biodegradable thermal insulator that is fire-resistant and has antibacterial and antifungal properties, specifically for use as wall insulation.
Over the past ten years, Lab2Maket has highlighted projects such as BreastScreening-AI, a spin-off co-founded by Técnico and the Institute for Systems and Robotics (ISR-Lisboa), which develops artificial intelligence technology to support breast cancer screening; Lampsy Health, a member of the IST Spin-Off community, which is developing an AI-based medical device for real-time detection of epileptic seizures; and RTBeamTech, which is developing the FLASHGuard project, an innovative beam monitoring system for FLASH radiotherapy—a new form of cancer treatment that delivers radiation in less than a second to protect healthy tissue.
