Entrepreneurial Research Initiative :: VR2Market Vital Responder might be a Spin-off – an Idea presented at VR2Market Symposium
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The Vital Responder Symposium, which took place on January 15 in Porto, brought together researchers involved in the VR2Market Entrepreneurial Research Initiative of the CMU Portugal Program, as well as some researchers interested in the theme. João Paulo Cunha, the Portuguese PI of the project and Professor at Faculdade de Engenharia of the University of Porto (FEUP), and other researchers presented some of the preliminary results of the project. It was also said that the next steps are to validate the prototype in a real environment and to put this mobile wearable health monitoring product in the market and this can be done through a spin-off. |
The Vital Responder is a jacket designed for fire-fighters, who face the most demanding professional scenarios among first responders. This project has generated a large number of devices, methodologies and know-how that can be used for other professionals, such as policemen and paramedics.
The Co-Founder and CEO of IncidentAid, Sean Lanthier, was a guest at the event and besides presenting his company and product, he provided real stories and valuable advice from his 30 years of experience as a firefighter and paramedic.
After Sean Lanthier’s presentation about cloud-based mobile technologies for improving first-responder safety, João Paulo Cunha presented the whole VR2Market team and the project’s consortium.
The researchers Pedro Brandão, from Faculdade de Ciências of the University of Porto and from Instituto de Telecomunicações, José Maria Fernandes, from Instituto de Engenharia Eletrónica e Telemática of the University of Aveiro, and Ana Rita Tedim, researcher at INESC TEC and PhD student at FEUP, presented the results obtained so far on areas such as system architecture, connectivity, cloud integration, business concept validation, among others.
What is the Vital Responder?
The Vital Responder explores the synergies between innovative wearable technologies, scattered sensor networks and precise localization to provide secure, reliable and effective first-response information services in emergency scenarios’ management. With this technology based on wearable vital signs and ambient parameter sensing, one can monitor different factors (temperature, carbon monoxide, etc.) that teams of professionals are exposed to and relate them to inner-body physiological responses, such as electrocardiogram parameters, body energy expenditure, body temperature or skin sweat level, among others.
January 2016
