Faculty of Science, Technology and Medicine
Faculty of Law, Economics and Finance
Faculty of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences
Interdisciplinary Centre for Security, Reliability and Trust
Luxembourg Centre for Systems Biomedicine
Luxembourg Centre for Contemporary and Digital History
Luxembourg Centre for European Law
Luxembourg Centre for Socio-Environmental Systems
Uni.lu launched the first-ever Market Innovation Camp, designed to help early-stage start-ups and spin-off projects transform bold ideas into market-ready solutions.
Participants immersed themselves in exploring new concepts, refining research-driven innovations and testing the viability of their ideas. The Market Innovation Camp offered them a tailored environment to test assumptions, understand real customer needs and lay the foundations for future venture growth.
A total of twenty-seven participants took part in this inaugural edition, supported by eighteen mentors. Their guidance played a crucial role in helping teams shape their value propositions and prepare for the final pitch.
The week culminated in a pitch competition evaluated by a jury which awarded first place to 3DENSURE, including Dr. Mohammad Abuabiah, Dr. Melek Walha and Heni Belgacem, supported by their scientific advisor, Prof. Inès Chihi. Their project introduces tailored, fully integrated smart sensors equipped with self-healing signal intelligence, offering reliable long-term sensing and reduced downtime across industrial, environmental and smart infrastructure applications. The strength of their technological vision and the clarity of their market potential earned them the top prize of 10,000 euros to invest in their venture. “Winning the Market Innovation Camp was an important recognition for our team and for the vision behind 3D-ENSURE,” said Mohammad. “The experience helped us move from broadly exploring the market to clearly defining our target segment, the exact job-to-be-done, and a stronger value proposition. It also allowed us to validate our idea with mentors, industry experts, and fellow innovators, strengthening our confidence that our technology can address real needs in smart and sustainable sensing.”
The runner-up award went to arXscope, developed by Luca Casagrande and Andrea Tsilogiannis. Their solution proposes an online platform that helps researchers identify potential authors who may be interested in citing their work, thereby enhancing academic visibility and fostering new scientific connections. “Participating in the Market Innovation Camp was an incredibly valuable experience for me, as it provided practical tools to better understand real customer needs and how to translate a research idea into a market-driven solution,” said Luca. “Winning a prize in such the competition is very encouraging, and it will allow me to start developing the prototype of my platform, which aims to help researchers gain greater visibility for their work and more easily connect with potential collaborators.” As the runner-up, arXscope took home 5,000 euros prize funded by Technoport.
‟ Market Innovation Camp aims at regrouping all the entrepreneurial forces of the University to address the critical question of matching research-based innovation or innovative ideas with market demands, and the first edition was an amazing success far beyond expectations! This further nurtures and reinforces our ever-growing pipeline of students start-up and researchers spin-off projects thanks to an unique professional support from seasoned mentors, advisors, and business experts.”
Chief Partnerships and Advancement Officer
The first Market Innovation Camp has demonstrated the University’s commitment to nurturing entrepreneurial talent and supporting the translation of research into impactful solutions.