On the 17th of October, the annual Digital Agenda Summit took place in Cyprus with great success. For the first time, the Conference hosted a startup competition for start-ups and Innovation teams who are developing AI solutions within the sectors of Tourism, Media, Learning, Education or Wellbeing.
SPPMedia and the Head of the organising Committee, Kyriakos Kokkinos, chose Cyprus Seeds to organise this competition, recognising the experience and the quality of the work that Cyprus Seeds has been doing for the last 5 years. Cyprus Seeds is a pioneer in supporting the commercialisation of research through grants, mentoring and networking opportunities, promoting the entrepreneurial spirit in academia. Worth mentioning, are the 2 spinouts resulting from the Cyprus Seeds programme, as well as the conclusion of two licensing agreements of one of its grantees.
Five proposals out of the 23 coming from Israel, Cyprus and Great Britain, pre-selected by the jury, were presented on the stage of “Alpha Stage”.
Israeli startup Blings is the winner of the Alpha Stage AI competition. Blings specialises in the production and distribution of video content using artificial intelligence with MP5 technology. However, due to the fact that the Israeli Blings has already secured investment capital of $4 million and has already matured and established itself as a business idea, it was decided that the prize money of the competition will be awarded to two other entries, which are still in the early stages but show considerable potential.
CAT-BRAIN and MammoCheck, two of Cyprus Seed’s teams, which are supported during the third funding cycle. The two promising startups were honoured by the committee with a special award and were given half of the prize money and a certificate of excellent ideas. In particular, the Cypriot startup CAT-BRAIN, which specialises in the provision of cognitive rehabilitation services, and the Cypriot startup MammoCheck, which specialises in innovative methods of breast cancer prevention, were awarded the €5,000 prize money each by the jury.
Cyprus Seeds and its US mentors, have been instrumental in changing the entrepreneurial spirit of the PhD and postdocs in the two teams.
DAAS-AI is an activity that aims to encourage teams from Cyprus and the surrounding region to present their innovative research project with an orientation to introduce it in a real applied environment. For more information you can access the link: www.digitalagendacy.com