Best startup will be awarded 50 thousand euros
Interested parties from any location can apply through the website edpopeninnovation.edp.pt. Afterwards, the groups will be evaluated by a jury made up of representatives of EDP and Grupo Impresa, a communication company that is a partner of the Company in this year's edition. The 15 best projects will be taken to an acceleration program in Portugal, where they will have the chance to develop and test the solidity and viability of their businesses.
This second phase takes place during the month of October and will be decisive for choosing the three finalist startups. The teams will then have to present their solutions before a new jury at an event that takes place on October 26, in Lisbon, and in which the Big Winner will also be defined. In addition to the cash prize, the EDP Open Innovation will give the finalists the opportunity to present their projects at the Web Summit, the main European innovation event.
“Brazil already won the competition last year and we have every confidence that the country’s teams are prepared to propose excellent projects in 2017”, says Lívia Brando, executive manager of EDP’s Innovation area.
winning Brazilians
Winner of the EDP Open Innovation in 2016, the Brazilian startup Delfos Predictive Maintenance, from Fortaleza, surprised the judges by presenting a solution that promised to answer the big problem of wind energy: how to increase the productivity and life cycle of turbines without increasing the operation and maintenance costs. For this, they created a system that monitors, analyzes and anticipates possible problems in the equipment in real time.
Currently, the team collaborates with EDP Inovação and EDP Renováveis in the development of a pilot project to test the application in a real environment.
“EDP Open Innovation gave us a seal of quality and credibility that opened many doors”, says Guilherme Studart, one of the partners at Delfos. “Learning about the acceleration process and the opportunity to interact with a major player was certainly essential to adjust our proposal to the reality of the market”, he adds.
EDP Brasil Innovation Ecosystem
Based on an understanding of innovation as a constant process, EDP Brasil has developed an ecosystem to foster innovative ideas and processes. It was the pioneer of the Brazilian electric sector in the robotization of processes, with the implementation in January of this year of a robotic system.
The work of identifying innovative projects and potential partners is fundamental in this endeavor of anticipating future movements. Therefore, support and investment in startups stand out. In addition to Open Innovation, the company brought to Brazil for the first time the EDP Starter, an initiative to help Startups at an early stage that propose innovative ideas capable of being adapted to the electricity sector.
Recently, EDP also joined seven other utilities worldwide to organize one of the largest startup acceleration programs in the world: the Free Electrons Global Accelerator. The competition recruited energy-related projects that will be important for the next generation of ideas in clean energy, energy efficiency, electric mobility, digitalization and customer support services.
Internally, EDP Brasil promotes innovation through contests and initiatives aimed at encouraging employees to present new ideas, such as the Innovation Day.
To learn more, visit: https://edpopeninnovation.edp.pt/.
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