CardioID’s goal was to produce a technology that would allow changing of routines of authentication and biometric identification of users and they did it by monitoring the heart signals. Each one of us has a heartbeat or a cardiac morphology that is unique – like a fingerprint.
CardioID’s core team, all comprised of electrotechnical engineers, first came into Beta-i’s fold when they participated in the first Lisbon Challenge. When the Beta-i’s team took the challenges of Smart Open Lisboa to them, they didn’t hesitate to put in their contributions towards better mobility in the city. They implemented their product CardioWheel: an Advanced Driver Assistance System that acquires the electrocardiogram (ECG) from the driver’s hands to continuously detect drowsiness, cardiac health problems, and biometric identity recognition.
We spoke with André Lourenço, one of the co-founders, about their path to the perfect product and their participation in SOL Mobility.
ReThink: What was your goal when you started CardioID?
André Lourenço: We had an ambitious goal – to have a base technology that could be applied to multiple scenarios. So we thought that authentication using the heartbeat could change our way of interacting with technology – from cell phones, computers, gaming consoles… anything where you can use your hands – we could identify the person and personalize the experience.
We talked with a lot of people but there wasn’t a go-to-market for that technology at the time – although we do hold the patent of the intellectual property – so we had to develop the technology further, to fit market needs. Because of our science background, we had a solution and we were trying to find the problem when usually it is the other way around.
RT: Is this how you got to your product, CardioWheel?
AL: Exactly! As CardioID evolved, we were looking for a market and we had always thought there was potential in the automotive industry, giving the user experience and the inherent problems of driving. So we started making changes to focus on the automotive industry.
RT: Did you change your vision to adapt to the market?
AL: Everything connected to the more operational side of the business was essential to make the product more marketable. Fleets and the managers are looking for lowering costs – those are the pains of a businessman. So, we had to integrate our base technology in a bigger idea that allows for optimization of a fleet.
But we really think this technology can make a difference and better our lives – there’s still so many car accidents. We know there are autonomous cars coming, but that’s not happening tomorrow. CardioID still maintains humans in command of cars but enhances our experience to be safer and smoother. But that is just one thing.
We believe this technology can go much further than cars.
RT: In which industries do you see CardioID in next?
AL: We have a base technology that is algorithms. We also made some hardware because it didn’t exist at the time. So we basically have a technology that can measure signals and process them locally, and that can be applied in anything. Namely, in the area of critical facilities and monitoring of “lone workers” – someone who has to climb a high voltage pole or inspect a pipeline, or other dangerous environments, by himself. Our tech can be embedded in a t-shirt or a band, and the process of analysis of fatigue and stress can be added. We can have these signals monitored by others or by the person themselves – giving him an awareness of his own conditions.
[wonderplugin_carousel id=”3″]
We saw immediately a slew of companies that we’d been trying to work with, giving that our product was ready to market. We needed a connection to them and SOL accomplished it very well.
RT: Why did you decide to join SOL Mobility? What were the main attractions the program had for you?
AL: The main attraction was the industry that was involved. We saw immediately a slew of companies that we’d been trying to work with, giving that our product was ready to market. We needed a connection to them and SOL accomplished it very well. It was an interesting deck of entities and companies, and we especially liked that several of them had national reach, even though the programme is “Smart Open Lisboa”.
RT: How was the process of working with a utility?
AL: Ferrovial in particular opened up for us, and they have been a great partner. We’re very happy to be working with them. We’ve made more contacts that are still on-going. It opened up a lot of doors for us that we are now developing relationships with. The programme aims to establish procedures and create visible milestones for both sides and it was really effective. The pilot was a real deployment of our technology with a big enough scale – that was important to us.
RT: You partnered up with Ferrovial – what is the pilot about?
AL: We are monitoring the whole driving experience of Ferrovial’s fleet. We’re using not only CardioWheel – which analyses the physiological signals of the driver – but also monitoring the car and the driving and the road itself. We applied complementary technological units to have a system that allows optimizing the costs of the operation and simultaneously greatly improve the safety of the driver.
It’s still early for the results, but we’ve observed some interesting things already. We have several driver profiles, that consider region, type of vehicle, driver’s physiology, route and incidents of the job. For example, there’s a big correlation between the number of incidents (weather, etc) and vehicle consumption.
RT: What were the biggest advantages you took from being in Smart Open Lisboa?
AL: The biggest advantage was the structure of the pilots and the contacts with the companies involved in the programme. The fact that we had all the entities and companies connected to mobility in the same room was very interesting – just having all the players in mobility there brought up ideas that connected with each other. That was a major plus.
RT: Would you recommend Smart Open Lisboa to other startups?
AL: Yes! There’s still so much to do in mobility. We’ve had so many ideas, we wish we had the time to it ourselves. But to take advantage of Smart Open Lisboa, a startup must be mature enough to develop the pilots and apply the technology on a national scale, that’s important to take notice.
You can take a look at CardioID’s pilot presentation below:
For more updates and articles, subscribe to our newsletter.
Smart Open Lisboa is back again, in its vertical SOL Housing, dedicated to upgrading Lisbon’s City Life. This vertical has a broad spectrum of opportunities in several areas: assisted living, retail experience, infrastructure and more.
The best way to identify them is to get to know the major players partnering with the programme!
Our goal is to make Lisbon one of the most competitive, innovative and creative cities in Europe. We often hear in major international media that “Lisbon is the new Berlin” or the “New Silicon Valley” to refer to the dynamics of innovation and entrepreneurship that is happening in Lisbon for the past six years. Much of what has been happening is the result of strong ambition and a global and actionable strategy that federates multiple stakeholders, positioning Lisbon in a growth and innovation trajectory unprecedented in its recent history.
Housing Partners
SONAE SIERRA
Sonae Sierra is an international retail real estate company dedicated to serving the needs of investors. We develop, manage and invest in sustainable retail assets and provide investment, architecture & engineering and property management services for clients in geographies as diverse as Europe, South America, North Africa, and Asia, while creating shared value for our business and society.
Sonae Sierra decided to embrace this open innovation program because we are a company with a strong background on Innovation, that is always searching for state-of-art solutions that allows us to reinforce our business competitiveness and our compromise with sustainable development. With this partnership we expect to benefit from the startup’s expertise in different areas, like big data, sensors, devices, etc, to improve our know-how and internal operations, but also contribute to their development and if possible to work with the most relevant ones in a near future.
Ricardo Rosa, Head of Innovation
EPAL
EPAL is the oldest and largest Portuguese water supply company, with 150 years of outstanding history and has long been the reference supply company in the water sector, both in Portugal and internationally. The company provides drinking water to approximately three million people, covering 1/3 of the population, with the responsibility to design, build, operate and manage the water supply and sanitation systems for which it is responsible, including all related activities and businesses.
Developing products and services in the form of innovative solutions and incorporate them into our operations, with the amazing contributions of our technicians expertize, is one of the ways EPAL gets engaged with the smart cities developing programs. It’s also a consistent evidence of our ability to share solutions in the interests of a more efficient water use. EPAL, Smart Open Lisbon Housing program and all startups involved, will certainly leverage strategic innovation in water services and will contribute to improve the quality of the citizens’ lives and to the social and economic development of the cities.
GALP
Galp is positioned as an integrated energy player that develops profitable and sustainable businesses, aiming to create value to its stakeholders. It explores and produces oil and natural gas, and generates and markets electricity. Galp’s strategy is based on a resilient E&P portfolio, embedded with an efficient and competitive downstream business, supported by innovative and differentiating solutions that promote the transition into a low carbon economy.
The company believes that ensuring the protection of people, the environment and assets, as well as the communities it operates in and adopting ethical conduct is crucial for its actions and strategic execution.
MOTA ENGIL RENEWING
Mota Engil Renewing has the mission to be the reference in promotion and operation of Cities’ Renewal, in tight collaboration with municipalities, and responding to the most pressing challenges and needs facing cities and citizens in terms of energy, mobility and housing.
They are a Smart Synergy Provider of Infrastructures and Services, managed by digital platforms (IoT), in the areas of Smart Energy – Smart Charging – Mobility – New Housing, developing integrated, differentiated and competitive solutions, adapted to the reality of each Client – Cities, Companies and Citizens.
2At ME Renewing, we always seek differentiated ways and approaches to respond to and mitigate the problems and challenges that cities face today, whether in energy management, electric mobility or in the housing and real estate market. In the area of New Housing, we are developing and implementing alternative solutions to business as usual, giving priority to Housing-as-a-Service, managed by digital platforms, adding a set of services that make life easier for citizens, areas where the company operates, such as energy, smart charging and mobility solutions, in a global competitive and differentiated offer.”
GEBALIS
GEBALIS has managed, for the past 22 years, the municipal housing districts in Lisbon, ensuring an integrated management policy based on criteria of proximity, improving the quality of life of resident populations and heritage conservation. GEBALIS’ activities are supported by an operating structure located in several points of the city, covering 66 Districts and about 22 949 housing units.
Associated Partners
SANTA CASA (SCML)
Santa Casa da Misericórdia de Lisboa (SCML) is the oldest and biggest Portuguese charity and its mission is to improve the quality of life of the individuals and communities in the city of Lisbon and to contribute to the well-being of its underprivileged and vulnerable citizens, irrespective of their age or social problems.
SCML is best known for his Social Action and for ensuring the exploitation of the State Social Games in Portugal, but also carries out important work in the areas of Health, Education and Teaching, Culture and Promotion of Quality of Life.
NOS
NOS is the biggest communications and entertainment group in Portugal. It offers the latest generation fixed and mobile phone, television, Internet, voice and data solutions for all market segments. It is the leader in Pay TV, new generation broadband services and in cinema exhibition and distribution in Portugal. NOS is part of the main Portuguese stock exchange index (PSI-20), and has more than 4.7 million mobile phone, 1.6 million television, 1.8 million fixed telephone and 1.3 million fixed broadband Internet customers.
CISCO
Cisco designs and sells a broad range of technologies that have been powering the Internet since 1984. Across networking, security, collaboration, and the cloud, our evolving intent-based technologies are constantly learning and adapting to provide customers with a highly secure, intelligent platform for their digital business.
“Entrepreneurship and innovation are in the DNA of Cisco, who has been a partner of the SOL program since the first edition. It is thus with great naturalness and enthusiasm that we are once again present and, together with the startups, we seek to solve the future challenges of Mobility and Urbanism. “
Sofia Tenreiro, General Manager at Cisco Portugal
AXIANS
Axians is the VINCI Energies brand dedicated to information and communications technology (ICT) and the digital transformation challenge. We answer to all ICT needs through human-centered methodologies with differentiated solutions in telecoms infrastructures, cloud, and data centers, enterprise networks, digital workspace and data analytics. Cybersecurity is a priority within all these areas. The best of ICT with a human touch.
Axians is proud to partner with Smart Open Lisboa. As a startup implementation program devoted to effectively upgrade city life, it fits exactly with our role in society: to improve the life of people, through the meaningful ICT we deliver to our clients. And our VINCI Energies’ way of life is in fact fueled through an entrepreneurial spirit. We truly believe that the key to a smarter and prosper city lies on startups and big corporate companies cooperation, learning from each other, evolving and preserving that unique human touch, at the heart of digital transformation.
Pedro Faustino, Board Member, Axians Portugal
TURISMO DE PORTUGAL
Turismo de Portugal is the National Tourism Authority in charge of promoting, improving and guaranteeing the sustainability of tourism as one of the most important economic activities in the country. As part of the Ministry of Economy, it groups together all the institutional powers related to invigorating tourism, from supply to demand.
“Turismo de Portugal is actively involved in shaping the future of smart cities and implementing projects that solve their challenges: SOL acceleration program enables the development and showcasing of solutions to overcome these challenges and promote sustainable cities. Sustainability is one of our tourism policy priorities and it’s a key driver to innovation.”
Luis Araujo, Presidente do Turismo de Portugal
SHARING CITIES
The Sharing Cities ‘lighthouse’ programme is a proving ground for a better, common approach to making smart cities evermore efficient. By fostering international collaboration between industry and cities, the project seeks to develop affordable, integrated, commercial-scale smart city solutions with high market potentialities. The project draws on €24 million in EU funding. It aims to trigger €500 million in investment and to engage over 100 municipalities across Europe.
At three strategic locations – London, Lisbon, and Milan – the programme will demonstrate the effectiveness of new technologies in improving urban mobility, increasing the energy efficiency of buildings and reducing carbon emissions.
TOMI
TOMI WORLD is a Portuguese technology company that created and developed TOMI, which is an innovative and interactive urban solution that delivers all information that matters in the right place at the right time. TOMI’s goal is to bring cities closer to people who live, work and travel in it.
Currently, TOMI WORLD has offices in Portugal, Brazil, UK, and China and is planning to open offices in main cities across the world as part of its internationalization process.
Do you have a solution that you would like to test with these market leaders? Don’t waste one more minute – apply to SOL Housing!
What makes SOL Housing, the new Smart Open Lisboa vertical, the place for your startup? Explore the reasons why you should consider participating in the programme if you have a startup with a solution for these challenges: urban management & smart infrastructure, construtech, proptech, resource efficiency, smart homes, buildings & retail properties, home care & assisted living, customer & community experience and financial services.
1. Work directly with Lisbon’s Municipality
Lisbon is a city that is now going through a lot of changes: the birth of several innovation hubs, the foreign investment, real-estate development and several programmes from the municipality to invest in the upgrading of the city’s quality is making it a perfect hotspot for new projects to be tested and applied.
Through this programme, you will be working directly with the partners – in this case, Lisbon’s Municipality is the main partner of the programme and you will get access to the decision makers.
2. Test your solution in different industries and sectors
In Smart Open Lisboa, you’ll get the opportunity to test your solution in different industries and sectors, co-operating with different partners of the programme.
You can read here about some of the pilots being developed in the last vertical.
3. Meet prospective clients and the key players in the industry
The main goal of the programme is to promote the cooperation between startups and companies – you don’t need to give up any equity of your company to join.
5. Applications are closing soon
The applications for SOL housing, the new vertical of Smart Open Lisboa, are closing on the 13th of February. So, don’t waste any time and click here to apply now!
Smart Open Lisboa is the open-innovation programme of the Lisbon Municipality that is bringing innovation to the city in several different verticals. The last edition was focused on the mobility vertical, and brought several startups who are successfully working with programme partners to implement pilots in Lisbon. Let’s get to know some of the on-going projects!
Eccocar wants to make your fleet more efficient
One of the programme’s startups, Eccocar, is implementing a pilot in partnership with Ferrovial and Lisbon’s Municipality to help increase the efficiency of their fleet with a car sharing principle. They hope to show their success by measuring KPI’s like management time (the time spent by the user booking the vehicle), fleet usage time, driver per car and fuel consumption. By digitizing the fleet, they hope to reduce costs, make better use of the cars and maintain the same level of service while reducing the fleet.
See the video below for a full explanation of the project:
Wall-i is creating sensors for better experiences
In partnership with Metro de Lisboa, Wall-i is installing visual sensors in key locations inside Metro stations around Lisbon.
The sensors create a heatmap to get more accurate data about the flow of users in the station, helping managers make better decisions. The sensors are also installed in entrances to detect and reduce fraud in the ticket validation gates.
This startup is also testing weather sensors all over the city, this time in partnership with Lisbon’s Municipality, to collect better environmental data in key points of the city: measuring things like CO2 level, humidity, temperature, noise level, etc.
This product is just one of many developed by this innovative startup. Get to know them here:
Shotl is changing the shuttle business
Another startup featured in this open-innovation programme is Shotl, who is trying to modernize the shuttle service.
Their mobility platform matches multiple passengers headed in the same direction with a moving vehicle. This service is especially thought out for suburban areas with less public transportation connections, and for passengers with reduced mobility, who are often confronted with fewer solutions and access.
In SOL Mobility, they have partnered up with Carris, the main bus provider in Lisbon, to implement their model in order to create an on-demand bus service for people with reduced mobility.
Get to know their model in this video:
But Smart Open Lisboa is not done innovating in the city of Lisbon. They are now accepting applications for the SOL Housing vertical, looking for startups with solutions that can be applied to solve these challenges:
Urban Management & Smart Infrastructure
Construtech
Proptech
Resource Efficiency
Smart Homes, Buildings & Retail Properties
Home Care & Assisted Living
Customer & Community Experience
Financial Services
If your startup has a new innovative solution that could upgrade city living and you want to test it with industry-leading partners in Lisbon, apply now to SOL Housing.
And to keep updated on SOL projects and other innovation news, subscribe to our newsletter!
This third edition is even more ambitious than the previous ones. The goal still continues to be the contribution of startups and their innovative ideas to a better, smarter and more efficient city. But this year you can count with new verticals and a “SOL Lab”. The program keeps its power to link partners, corporates and startups to face the challenges of smart cities, it’s only perfected.
According to Duarte Cordeiro, Vice President of Câmara Municipal de Lisboa, “the Smart Open Lisboa is a project that fits the innovation strategy that the City Hall has designed for Lisbon, adding the fact that we can transform the city into a true Open Innovation Lab. We learned a lot from the first two editions and that’s why we’ve made some changes. For instance we created several smaller verticals dedicated to specific areas instead of having the whole program focused on different areas”.
So the program starts focused on Mobility and during Summer is having a vertical focused on Housing. Also “SOL Lab” makes its debut, the goal of this lab is to help these new ideas to be introduced in the city.
The program is promoted by Câmara Municipal de Lisboa, with collaboration of Sharing Cities, with Axians, Cisco, Daimler, NOS, Santa Casa da Misericórdia and TOMI as associated partners. Carris, Metropolitano de Lisboa, EMEL, Brisa and Ferrovial will help with the startups’ pilots. Infraestruturas de Portugal and CP will have data available.
