The winning team has proposed a technique to revolutionise the diagnosis and management of Parkinson’s disease, with a view to improving patients’ quality of life.
The SynapTrace team emerged as the winner of the 9th edition of the Mundo Biomédico Hackathon, an initiative dedicated to promoting innovation, creativity and entrepreneurship in the healthcare sector.
The team, comprising Amy Unda Cabrera, Júlia Águis Gabry, Maria Duarte Antunes and Uruemu Faith Ukpejiroke, proposed an ultra-thin, flexible patch equipped with motion and surface electromyography sensors, capable of detecting signs of Parkinson’s disease before visible symptoms appear.
Victory in the competition, which took place on 28 May at the UBImedical incubator, secured the winners a cash prize of €400.
This year’s edition featured 18 multidisciplinary teams of students who presented their projects in a pitch competition format to a specialist jury comprising Dina Pereira, Executive Director of UBImedical; Ana Cristóvão, representing the Faculty of Health Sciences (FCS-UBI), researcher and CEO of NeuroSoV; and João Dias, lecturer, researcher and CEO of Inklusion.
The projects were assessed according to criteria such as team skills, communication skills, market potential, feasibility, impact, scalability and innovation.
The event was organised by lecturer Eduardo Cavaco, representing FCS-UBI, in collaboration with UBIMedical | UBIExecutive, represented by Dina Pereira.
This edition benefited from a preliminary training module on entrepreneurship, provided to Biomedical Sciences students as part of the European IMPACTWHEEL project, funded by the European Union through the EIT HEI Initiative, a consortium of 10 European organisations led by UBImedical.
The initiative is a concrete example of how European entrepreneurship programmes can generate measurable results at institutional level, bridging the gap between academic training and applied innovation in the health sector.
Participating teams are encouraged to continue developing their projects and can count on mentoring and acceleration support provided by the IMPACTWHEEL project and the UBImedical | UBIExecutive incubator.
