8th Innovation & Entrepreneurship Forum
AI & Business: Creating Value, Minimizing Risks
In November 2023, the 8th Innovation & Entrepreneurship Forum (IEF), hosted by the Center for Entrepreneurship (C4E) at the University of Cyprus, brought together a vibrant community of researchers, entrepreneurs, industry leaders, and investors. The annual forum has become a cornerstone event in Cyprus’ innovation landscape—one that fosters collaboration, celebrates bold ideas, and promotes entrepreneurial growth across sectors.
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Among the distinguished participants this year was Dr. Dimitris Kyriakou, Co-Founder and CEO of EFEVRE TECH, who took the stage to present one of the company’s most pioneering innovations: the VITALE software. Positioned as a game-changing tool for autonomous experimentation and reproducibility in healthcare research, VITALE captured the attention of the forum’s scientific audience.
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The forum provided the perfect backdrop for engaging with key stakeholders, demonstrating VITALE’s and AMGEL's potential to reshape laboratory workflows through automation, and exploring collaborative opportunities with academia and industry.
Introducing VITALE: A Forward-Looking Vision
Dr. Kyriakou introduced the VITALE software, a visionary platform still in development at the time of the forum. Designed to complement the automation of the AMGEL robotic device, VITALE is a proposed AI-powered software ecosystem for the Life-Science research sector - envisioned to support experiment planning, real-time logging, and automated data analysis with a strong emphasis on transparency and reproducibility.
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The presentation highlighted VITALE’s intended features, intelligent process monitoring, structured data capture, and integration with autonomous laboratory devices. Although the proposed VITALE project is still at the conceptual stage, during IEF 2023 the positive reception from the scientific community affirmed the urgent need for such a solution, particularly in the context of reproducibility and research integrity.
Valuable Feedback and Strategic Impact
Following the presentation, Dr. Kyriakou engaged in in-depth discussions with members of the attending scientific audience, receiving valuable feedback on the desirability and practical implementation of both AMGEL and the proposed VITALE system. These insights were subsequently shared with the internal development team at EFEVRE TECH and played a key role in shaping VITALE’s evolving feature set and user experience.
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This strategic participation at IEF 2023 yielded several tangible benefits for EFEVRE TECH:
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Community Validation: Direct engagement with experts validated the relevance and urgency of VITALE’s core functionalities.
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Feedback-Driven Refinement: The feedback collected at the forum helped the team refine the user needs, interface design, and automation logic behind VITALE.
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Network Expansion: The forum enabled connections with potential research collaborators, tech partners, and early adopters who expressed interest in pilot-testing future versions of the platform.
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Project Acceleration: Exposure at the IEF acted as a catalyst, inspiring further R&D investment and accelerating development timelines.
Looking Ahead
The 8th Innovation & Entrepreneurship Forum not only strengthened EFEVRE TECH’s position as a leading voice in scientific automation, but also contributed directly to the strategic development of VITALE. As the platform moves from concept to prototype, the insights gained during IEF 2023 continue to shape its vision—ensuring it meets the real-world needs of modern laboratories.
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The Project with the proposal number ENTERPRISES/0223/Sub-Call1/105 and project acronym VITALE is funded by the European Union Recovery and Resilience Facility of the NextGenerationEU instrument, through the Ίδρυμα Έρευνας και Καινοτομίας/Research and Innovation Foundation.
