Enline Energy was the winner of the 5G Innovation Grand Prize in the second edition of the 5G Challenge. The announcement was made at the grand final of this technological competition, held at Altice Portugal's headquarters, where 12 finalists presented their projects to a jury. The winning solution makes it possible to create digital twins of power grid infrastructures, without using more sensors, by applying electromagnetic models and artificial intelligence to create a much more effective and efficient grid management, maintenance and monitoring solution.
As Manuel Lemos, CEO and Co-founder of Enline, explains: "With this technology we can create digital twins of real assets, remotely, anywhere in the world, without the need to implement additional hardware or add sensorization." The technology makes it possible, he says, "to create a very advanced model for knowing the state and behavior of assets in relation to electrical, mechanical, thermal and climatic variables, from generation, by any source, to transmission, substations, distribution and large-scale consumption."
"5G is the backbone of our technology because we need its transmission speed and processing quality." Manuel Lemos, CEO and Co-founder of Enline.
5G key to winning solution
With this technology, explains Manuel Lemos, "it is possible to make the way these assets are sized, operated and maintained more effective and efficient". This, he says, "makes it possible to reduce losses, increase capacity, monitor, detect and prevent faults and carry out appropriate maintenance, among many other possibilities".
How does this solution take advantage of 5G? Manuel Lemos explains: "5G is the backbone of our technology because we need its transmission speed and processing quality to receive, process and transmit huge amounts of data very quickly to customers , which is located all over the world," he concludes.
Ecosystem brings innovation and added value
For Nuno Nunes, Chief Sales Officer B2B at Altice Portugal, "this is the kind of solution that Altice, as a global supplier to the business market, wants to identify. We are looking for innovative, high value-added solutions that start-ups and companies are developing".
"Over the years, we have been able to identify solutions with great potential to address the most diverse areas of the business fabric." Nuno Nunes, Chief Sales Officer B2B at Altice Portugal With the 5G Challenge, says Nuno Nunes, "over the years we have been able to identify solutions with great potential to address the most diverse areas of the business fabric. Solutions that we integrate into our portfolio and with which we bring value to companies".
In his experience, "this ecosystem of start-ups and entrepreneurship is absolutely fundamental to technological evolution and it's up to us big companies to foster and boost this type of approach and contribution to the market," he concludes.
Smart clapping
For eDynamics' eSole project, winner of the "Best Portuguese Solution" award, 5G is also of great importance because the basis of the solution is sensing and real time. The project is based on the development of a "smart insole", which assesses various musculoskeletal health indicators and athletes' performance on the spot and in real time.
The assessment is based on sensors in the insoles and artificial intelligence, and aims to measure athletes' muscle fatigue and predict the risk of injury.
This solution, as Joana Figueiredo, CEO of eDynamics, explains, is already being tested with athletes from Sporting Clube de Braga and this award "comes at an important time, when we have developed work, we have more clubs interested and possible applications in various sports, such as hiking".
In this context, the 5G Challenge "gives us strength, recognition and visibility, which are important if we are to achieve our next goals," he concludes.
Assisted driving for the blind
Last but not least, the Sustainability and Social Impact Award was won by .lumen, a company based in Romania, with its "Glasses for the Blind" solution.
The project, defined by its CEO Cornel Amariei as "assisted driving for the blind", applies artificial intelligence and a high level of connectivity to enable spatial navigation by blind people using "headset/glasses" with "vision" cameras, sensors and feedback. The aim is, in the long term, not only to replace walking sticks and guide dogs in their work of helping these people to "navigate" their daily lives, but also to greatly increase their autonomy.
5G ecosystem still growing
This edition of the 5G Challenge takes place at a particularly interesting moment in the development of this technology at Altice, notes José Pedro Nascimento, CTO of Altice Portugal: "We are completing the implementation of our standalone 5G core, which will allow us to have new features, such as network slicing, and will open up the ecosystem to APIs for programmers and solution developers who will be able to develop their use cases on top of our core."
"We're going to use our Core to provide APIs to programmers and solution developers who will be able to develop their use cases." José Pedro Nascimento, CTO of Altice Portugal.
In his view, "this evolution will be transformative and will allow our ecosystem of solutions and applications for 5G to grow in an extraordinary way, not only for the business market, but also for people".
5G boosts the use of more technologies
It should be noted that the various finalist solutions, developed by 12 companies, are also powered by technologies such as artificial intelligence, augmented reality, the Internet of Things (IoT) or automation, which, together with 5G connectivity, can make a difference to companies' lives. In this edition, Altice highlighted the most advanced features of 5G, which allow, for example, network slicing, i.e. dedicating a slice of the network with guaranteed quality of service to use cases that require high resilience.
The jury for this edition was made up of Fátima Caçador, Director of Casa dos Bits, Hélder Almeida, Operations Director of Efacec Power Solutions, José Pedro Nascimento, CTO of Altice Portugal and Nuno Nunes, CSO B2B of Altice Portugal. In addition to the three monetary prizes, divided into three categories, the winning solutions will be included in MEO Empresas 's portfolio and in the universe of its strategic partnerships, allowing the solutions to go to market at customers MEO Empresas .
From surfing to wind farms: The other nine finalist projects
In addition to the three winners, nine other finalists presented their projects in this final, selected from more than 50 applications from Portugal, Ireland, England and the United States, among other countries.
As Nuno Nunes, Chief Sales Officer B2B at Altice Portugal, explained, "these are projects that, although they were not honored in this edition, have entered the radar of Altice and its partners. We know from our experience with previous editions that often these projects, depending on their maturity or the evolution of the market and technology, become part of our portfolio or find their way into the market with our support," he said.
The projects presented were extraordinarily diverse, proposing solutions that exploit the potential of the 5G mobile network, with a special focus on solutions that use advanced 5G features such as network slicing. From augmented reality applications for remote technical assistance, to computer vision applied to safety in the workplace, to the automation of agroforestry machines.
Other solutions presented address emerging cybersecurity needs in the context of the IoT (Internet of Things) in urban and industrial environments, explore ways to make wind energy production accessible to more companies and individuals, and to automate and democratize the filming of surfing sessions.
Jornal de Negócios