The University facilitates business innovation thanks to the science of data and artificial intelligence.

Earthpulse, Dedomena, WhiteBox and IASolver were the startups selected from among the more than 50 that presented their proposals in the first edition of "SofIA", the acceleration programme for startups in innovation and artificial intelligence promoted by the University of Navarra. The selection took place during the event of presentation of finalists(pitch) in the Campus of Madrid of the University of Navarra, with the presence of the organisers, the jury and the companies that defined the challenges to be solved: Axa Seguros, BBVA AI Factory, Carrefour and Laboratorios Cinfa. The jury's decision was based on four main aspects: team, capacity for innovation, approach novelty and guarantees of success.

According to Iván Cordón, organiser of the programme and manager of Innovation in DATAI (high school of Science of data and Artificial Intelligence) of the University of Navarra, "the first edition of SofIA closes with a great participation. It is worth highlighting the high level of innovation of those finally selected. In the time for the development that is now beginning, we hope to generate a space for knowledge and partnership where both startups and large companies feel comfortable working together to solve challenges that only the science of data and artificial intelligence can provide an effective solution to. And from DATAI we will continue to promote initiatives so that the research we develop is transferred to society, seeking a positive impact and promoting an ethical and sustainable environment".

For his part, Ricardo Pérez, director of development of Innovation Factory, the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Centre of the University of Navarra, stressed that "the high level of the companies and the startups is a real challenge for the University of Navarra, but I am convinced that we will meet the expectations of all parties".

During the next six months -time for the development of the solutions-, the selected startups will receive the necessary mentoring and training from the University of Navarra and the monitoring of the participating companies, as well as the necessary tools to complete the process successfully.

These are the selected startups

1. EarthPulse, for AXA Seguros' challenge : provides access to analytics from data satellites. Its software allows a greater knowledge of the scope of climate risks and their impact on infrastructures, people or businesses, very relevant information for insurers, managers of critical infrastructures or supply chains, among others.

2. Dedomena AI, for BBVA AI Factory: Spanish startup founded in 2021 that offers anonymisation solutions, synthetic data generation and value extraction from data. Its mission statement is to help data-driven companies reduce time-to-data and time-to-insight from months to days. It offers an end-to-end solution with integrated anonymisation capabilities, synthetic data generation and modular AI solutions to enrich data information, both structured and unstructured, through APIs and an intuitive Username interface.

3. WhiteBox, for Carrefour: specialised in the development of Data Science/IA projects.