Manuel Reis Carneiro was among the winners of the 2024 edition of Acelera@UC, an acceleration program promoted by UC Business, the Technology Transfer Office at Universidade de Coimbra (UC).
The CMU Portugal Dual Degree Ph.D. student in Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) at UC and Carnegie Mellon University, presented one of the five winning business ideas “E-skins: Wearable bio stickers for long-term electrophysiology” based on results from the Large Scale Collaborative project WoW.
“The goal here was to take the scientific knowledge obtained from the Wow project and previously published papers from our labs in terms of wearable health monitoring and translate it into a commercial product that can in the future reach consumers. E-skins consist of a line of wearable biostickers that can be adhered to the skin and enable monitoring of various health parameters including heart, brain or muscle activity. These wearables are based on the conductive inks and fabrication techniques we have been developing at the Institute of Systems and Robotics at the University of Coimbra, and at the Soft Machines Lab at CMU.”
Throughout the months-long Acceleration program, participants were challenged to develop key tools and skills in communicating their research work, intellectual property, valorization and transfer models. The 12 participating teams of Acelera@UC delivered their technology pitches to a jury that included UC Vice-Rectors Gabriela Fernandes and Nuno Mendonça; the Coordinator of the R&D International Office of UC, Jorge Figueira; the Coordinator of Instituto Pedro Nunes’ Incubator, Ana Seguro; and the Head of Growth & Acceleration at Startup Portugal, Fernando Fraga.
“Participating in Acelera@UC was the perfect way of starting the transformation of knowledge created in the lab into a viable product and service that will hopefully reach consumers in the future. The program gave us new insights on IP protection and valorization as well as creation and funding of Startup companies. As I see it, the biggest advantage of this program is that it challenges us to create a professional pitch to better communicate our business idea to future investors, partners, and consumers but as well awarded our project with wide exposure through participation in the Startup Capital Summit,” explains Manuel Carneiro.
The Ph.D. candidate will now present his work with the other four winning ideas at the Startup Capital Summit, the largest national event for venture capital, innovation, entrepreneurship, and technology transfer in Portugal, taking place on May 10th at Convento São Francisco, in Coimbra.
The other winning ideas were:
- ApneaScreener – Sleep apnea diagnosis on a blood droplet
- DyeLoop – Circular and Integrated platform for the recovery and reuse of textile dyes from industrial effluents
- NanoLensTech: Contact lens modified with nanotechnology for the treatment of keratoconus
- RubLiq: Dissolution of end-of-life tire rubber for surface applications
Manuel Carneiro has been working under his Ph.D. on the development of stretchable electronic circuits and wearable electronics, supervised in Portugal by Mahmoud Tavakoli (UC) and Carmel Majidi (CMU).
You can read more about Manuel Carneiro research here.
