Platforms connecting homeless people with support, disabled job-seekers to the market or a community on mental illness: The winners of this year’s European Innovation Academy (EIA) in Cascais are not only passionate about tech but also about social impact.

“We don’t want coins. We want change.” With this slogan, social platform WeLive aiming to connect homeless people with nearby shelters, charities and businesses convinced this year’s jury of the 2018 EIA.

Competing with 500 participants from 75 nationalities, the ten winning teams of the EIA Portugal edition were announced last week after 15 intensive days of acceleration. 

Eight of the ten winning teams had students from Portugal as members, connecting them  with their peers from renowned universities such as University of California Berkeley.

This year’s edition had a focus on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and robots, such as winning team Paralegal Bot, an AI-powered “legal consultant a message away”.  

Read more: European Innovation Academy returns to Portugal with AI, robotics focus

The winners are receiving prices that range from expedited interviews with accelerators over trademark protection to business and marketing coaching from HAG Consulting, EIA, Hunter & Bard, Nixon Peabody, otherDOTs or Dybaw Venture Capital.

The European Innovation Academy (EIA) claims to be the ‘world’s largest extreme accelerator’ that turns an idea into a startup in only 15 days. “In EIA the students are doing the same that accelerators are trying in 3-6 months (…) Impressive!”, is Google representative Martin Omander quoted.

Since its 2017 inroads into Portugal, EIA joined forces with Beta-i, the Santander bank, the Cascais City Hall and the New University of Lisbon. According to Portuguese media, EIA is expected to stay in the country at least until 2022.

EIA has so far been held in the Estoril Congress Center in Cascais. However, in the coming years, the event might move to the new facilities of the Faculty of Economics and Management of Universidade Nova, according to the report. 

The city of Cascais is no stranger to entrepreneurship, and in recent years it has positioned itself as a center of innovation on the world stage.

Earlier this year, the city of Cascais has hosted over 600 world leaders including politicians, academics, and chief executives at the Horasis Global Meeting.

Read More: Horasis Global Meeting heads to Cascais with over 600 world leaders attending

These are the 10 winning team of the 2018 edition of EIA in Portugal:

• Navismart
  NaviSmart is an information exchange platform to optimize sea traffic and port operations. It will help boaters to access real-time information for berth booking and arrival schedule. In addition, it will help ports and marinas, to workload organization.
• Bellas
  Marketplace that connect women that need good, trustworthy and available beauty professionals, being able to look for a professional, see her portfolio, evaluations, calendar, book and pay through the page.’
• Paralegal Bot
  Your AI legal Consultant a message away.
• Plum
  PLUM connects expatriates in search of fresh and healthy homemade authentic meals to those who love to provide these through a mobile application platform. If you’ve ever missed mom’s cooking – we’ve got your covered!
• Pause
  We are creating a community that encourages and destigmatized conversation about mental wellness.
• Baby Sisters
  Baby Sisters is a high-quality platform offers professional babysitters on-demand. In the future, we seek to expand in Europe and become the number one babysitting provider. Baby Sisters, a babysitter you can trust.
• Copito
  Disposable cups cause a lot of waste and people do not use the current reusable cups provided on their daily life. Our reusable cup motivates the consumers to reuse it, through an interactive app.
• Welive
  A platform that connects homeless people to nearby volunteers, shelters, charities and businesses to provide them with free resources and help build lasting relationships.
• Gitsmart
  Understanding the struggles that IT recruiters face to pick the best, we realized that a simple yet effective solution needed to be made. We strive to aid recruiters in finding future employees by weeding out unfit candidates with the click of a button.
• Impower
  Connecting the disabled community with the employers while giving them information about the market benefits.
• Proco
  Tired of useless in class university projects, which do not add any value to your future career? PROCO offers a multi-sided platform that brings students, universities, and companies together by focusing on co-creation projects and recruitment.
• Incput (Incprint)
  Growth & navigational platform for a step-by-step help to build a startup.
• Buggybug
  Our idea is to create a security device for baby strollers. We are trying to address the fact that there is no solution when you have to leave the baby stroller alone, carrying it everywhere and always stay focused on the stroller is no option.
• Locally
  A program that allows people without consistent access to internet to connect and communicate with their local community offline.
• Smartcap
  At SmartCap, we allow people to perform at their best by easing their hydration level.
• Kode 4 all 
  Kode is designed to help younger kids to learn programming without having to write any code themselves. Every beginner goes through mini games where they are challenged with logical problems and they solve through programming concepts.