Protechting Startups are bringing innovation in areas we can all relate to: the protection of people and their belongings, service, health and savings. So how are these teams building the tools that will change our daily routines?
This is the first of a series of three blogposts updating you on the latest developments of the startups in the Protechting startup accelerator program by Fidelidade/Fosun and Beta-i.
A lot of progress has been made so far in the program by the teams but the most important part still lies ahead as we’re just two weeks away from the final presentation. Mário from CleeBeen Technologies, Bart from Ectosense and Ridhi from Noxidity joined us for a quick status update on their learnings and milestones.
CleenBeen Technologies aims to resolve one of the most predominant problems in hospital environment: bacterial/superbug and MRSA infections through an IoT technology that provides real-time information about the levels and hygiene processes at any hospital. By using CleenBeen’s solution, hospitals will contribute to a better infection controlled environment, reducing the resulting diseases (even deaths) and the associated maintenance costs.
Their initial focus was on hospital’-s’ bathrooms, where they applied their sensors to see if the hygiene steps we’re being followed correctly, controlling for example the time the water tap was open, if people dried their hands and if they had flushed the toilets, between many other metrics.
But we all know how speaking with potential customers can radically change the way you build and implement your solution: Since they started talking with the head of the Infection Control department at the Beatriz Ângelo Hospital in Lisbon, Dr. Carlos Palos, they realized that instead hygiene control in bathrooms, their main focus should be the medical rooms where the patients are in direct contact with doctors, nurses and other staff elements.
Definitely extremely valuable feedback that most of times only experts can give you.
The CleenBeen team was “lucky”
to have met Dr. Carlos Palos as one of the Coaches assigned to the Protechting program –as soon as they met each other they knew that implementing a pilot at Beatriz Ângelo Hospital was the next big step, and they’re working on the final legal issues to start the pilot.
Their main challenge right now is to “teach” their algorithm to learn the five steps for hand-Hygiene made by the World Health Organization (WHO), the fifth being the most tricky one: How to control the hygiene process of somebody who enters a medical room, without having close contact with the patient but who still needs to clean his hands before leaving the room.
Ectosense leverages mobile technology to measure and analyze the user’s sleep quality in their home environment. Analyzing the user’s heart rate using third-party devices as well as recording other inputs gathered through your mobile device, the app determines the presence of disturbed sleep in a similar way the physician would do it.
“Lisbon is a nice and cheap city to live in and the main reason we applied was the sponsors because they’re right in our industry and also the direct-level access we have with experts through Beta-i and Fidelidade/Fosun. That in any other way would be really hard to reach.”
Again, expert feedback at Hospital da Luz was one of the key moments of the program since it allowed them to validate the features they had planned and start defining what to prioritize. They also had a really relevant time with Marcelo Lebre, Lead Developer at Faber Ventures, who help them structure their IT architecture.
Noxidity, a new Internet-of-Things enabled (IoT) technology that predicts and facilitates the maintenance of corrosion, is now focused on interviewing larger companies to gather as much input as they can while developing the prototype.
For example, many of the utilities companies have sub-power stations in remote locations that easily corrode. With Noxidity’s technology, the companies will be able to keep track of the corrosion levels in real-time from their offices, saving money and time. The team also secured a really relevant advisor, the President of the European Federation of Corrosion, Dª Fátima Montemor.
In Lisbon Ridhi found a growing Startup ecosystem, where people and businesses genuinely want to help, high quality talent is easy to find and where the quality of life is a tremendous plus point.
With two weeks to go and so much work to get done the pressure on the startups is rising but their contagious motivation and drive will definitely boost a killer presentation on the final day. Freddie Mercury would clearly define the goal for these two last weeks: From singing “Under Pressure” in the middle of the show to a “We Are the Champions” overwhelming performance in the end.
If you want to learn more about the Protechting startup accelerator program or any of the teams that are taking innovation to the next level, then do get in touch here