LASIGE’s PhD student, Filipa Rocha, won the “Digital Transition” category of the Born from Knowledge (BfK) Ideas competition with her project, “Block-Based Accessible Tangible System”. The BfK Ideas program, run by the National Innovation Agency (ANI), aims to promote the transfer of knowledge from higher education institutions to the business community. The program encourages and supports the work carried out by these institutions and their Technology Transfer Offices.

The project focuses on making digital learning more accessible to visually impaired children. It uses toys and educational systems that make digital literacy accessible through fun and play. The project was submitted to the call by Ciências ULisboa and selected as a semi-finalist for the BfK Ideas’ immersion program, aimed at perfecting the development of the idea and training for the pitch on the BfK Ideas 2023 final event. There were 21 semi-finalist innovative projects presented at the event held on November 16, 2023, and 3 were awarded, one per specific category.

Filipa Rocha was already awarded the 2nd prize of the Young Inventors Award by the European Patent Office. As the winner of the BfK Idea competition, Filipa Rocha has gained access to the next edition of ANI’s ideas acceleration program – BfK Rise. This program offers intensive mentoring and training over the course of 3 months to facilitate the transfer of knowledge/technology to the market.

Filipa is developing her PhD research under the LASIGE’s RLE Inclusive Human-Computer Interaction. Her work is supervised at LASIGE by integrated member Tiago Guerreiro.

Image credits: ANI