INESC-ID researchers Rui Prada, Diogo Rato and Pedro M. Fernandes have received the first ever António Brandão Vasconcelos Award.

Set up in honour of the founder of the iLLP@Técnico – Innovation Lean LaunchPad, the acceleration programme that became Lab2Market@Tecnico, the António Brandão Vasconcelos Award recognises “the most outstanding team within the Lab2Market@Técnico program, which, with the support of NTT Data Portugal and i-Deals, aims to identify and support the path to market of projects and technologies developed by researchers, teachers, and students of Instituto Superior Técnico.”

And the most outstanding team within the Lab2Market@Técnico program is exactly what the three Artificial Intelligence for People and Society (AIPS) researchers were. Sharing, with three additional teams, three months-worth of training on how to turn their unique ideas into a viable business, Professor Prada, Diogo and Pedro — both PhD students at AIPS — were recognized for their project Testwaves, through which they intend to explore AI-based solutions for automated play-testing. The budding company has exciting plans for the near future, so definitely stay tuned.

The Testwaves team received the António Brandão Vasconcelos Award, worth a cash prize of €3,500, on 31 May at Instituto Superior Técnico.

Photo credit: Departamento de Engenharia Informática (DEI), Instituto Superior Técnico.