In a recent opinion article in Jornal de Negócios, Pedro Oliveira, Dean of NOVA School of Business and Economics (Nova SBE), highlights Patient Innovation (PI), an initiative launched in 2014, under the scope of the Carnegie Mellon Portugal Program.
The Patient Innovation Platform is the outcome of the CMU Portugal Program Entrepreneurial Research Initiative (ERI) TEIPL, led by Pedro Oliveira, and Helena Canhão, Dean of Nova Medical School and currently Secretary of State of Science and Innovation. Today, the platform has over 2,500 solutions.
The Patient Innovation Bootcamp, organized by Nova SBE, Nova Medical School, and its partners, and funded by EIT Health, has already supported 64 projects from more than 20 European countries.
Pedro Oliveira’s article focuses on one of its most notable success stories. Hans Jørgen Wiberg is a visually impaired man who developed the Be My Eyes app, which connects blind users with sighted volunteers through video calls for visual assistance. In 2023, Be My Eyes introduced Virtual Volunteer, an AI-powered feature for immediate descriptions, and is partnering with Ray-Ban to integrate AI into smart glasses. Wiberg’s solution has already achieved global reach, with over 9.3 million users across 150 countries.
“The case of Hans Jørgen Wiberg demonstrates how AI has the potential to amplify users’ capacity for innovation. By automating complex tasks, from image reading and clinical data analysis to digital device prototyping, AI frees up time and resources, allowing patients, caregivers, and entrepreneurs to focus on the more human aspect of innovation: creativity and empathy. AI can also suggest improvements, predict impact, and accelerate the cycle between experience and innovation, turning every user into a potential value creator in healthcare. User innovation is just one more area that AI will disrupt in unpredictable ways.” shares Pedro Oliveira.
In this article, Pedro Oliveira also refers to the CMU Portugal PI Accelerator Program, launched in May 2024. The Program, developed in collaboration with Project Olympus, a CMU Incubator Program; the Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship; and AlphaLab Health,is considered the first and only acceleration program focused on solutions developed by patients who are caregivers for their own needs.
Read the opinion article here (in Portuguese).