InoCrowd and Soraya Gadit clinch people's choice award at Nova Demo Night

Tonight’s Makers in the Making Demo Night at Nova SBE’s Haddad Entrepreneurship Institute offered a masterclass in community-led innovation, sparking rich dialogue among founders, technologists, and aspiring entrepreneurs. With three bold startups presenting transformative solutions and a lively tribe of peers sharing critical feedback, the event delivered practical insights into startup development and peer-driven growth.

InoCrowd and Soraya Gadit: People’s Choice, Proven Innovation

Soraya Gadit, CEO and founder of InoCrowd, secured the People’s Choice Award with her sophisticated approach to open innovation. InoCrowd leverages artificial intelligence to broker high-value matches between 1.6 million global solvers and leading organizations. With a verified 95% project implementation rate, the solution empowers industry and academia to crowdsource real challenges—demonstrating scalable, measurable value well beyond pitch metrics.

Soraya’s presentation resonated for its empirical rigor and strategic clarity. The audience recognized InoCrowd’s differentiated value proposition: facilitating cross-disciplinary collaboration and actionable knowledge transfer between global stakeholders. Her portfolio already includes partnerships with NASA and Coca-Cola, reflecting a mature, execution-driven founder ethos. Audience feedback emphasized InoCrowd’s systems-level thinking, social impact, and Soraya’s authenticity as a founder—consistently linking her narrative to both economic and societal value.

Startup Cohort: Diverse Solutions, Shared Ambition

The Demo Night featured three high-caliber startups, each tackling distinct pain points in applied AI, digital transformation, and impact innovation:

Founders shared the inflection points on their journeys—highlighting rapid prototyping, market validation, and the journey from hypothesis-driven design to measurable impact.

Audience Feedback: A Practitioner's Perspective

The candid Q&A session and Mentimeter feedback provided sharp, actionable critique for each team:

• InoCrowd was cited for its robust business case, implementation evidence, and direct applicability across both enterprise and research domains.

• Bamble’s practical AI training modules were seen as a direct antidote to the skills gap in many organizations, with calls for more vertical customization moving forward.

• Aitec Serv received high marks for its technical depth and societal impact, but was challenged on questions of regulatory scalability and potential for international market expansion.

Running through all feedback was a strong call for proof of traction, measurable outcomes, and processes that foster founder resilience—core themes for any practitioner seeking to de-risk new ventures in competitive markets.

Reflections on Community, Network, and Next Steps

This event underscored the primacy of peer networks in entrepreneurial development: every founder benefited not just from exposure, but from substantive critique that will inform their strategic pivots. The openness to sharing both setbacks and victories fostered an environment where “failing forward” is celebrated as a mark of experienced leadership.

Audience members voiced concrete takeaways:

• “Events like this are critical catalysts for peer mentorship and experiential learning.”

• “Cross-sector feedback drives far better iteration than siloed pitch competitions.”

• “The emphasis on real-world adoption, not just novel tech, made this night especially valuable.”

Call to Action: Expand Your Founder's Network

For founders and entrepreneurs determined to accelerate learning, build actionable networks, and gain access to real feedback, join the next Demo Night. Peer accountability, mentorship, and ecosystem connection form the foundation of entrepreneurial growth.

Reserve your spot for the next event and experience the power of Lisbon’s founder community. Join a tribe committed to startup excellence by signing up today at lu.ma/Canopy. This isn’t just another event—it’s where founder journeys move forward, together.

watch the full live stream https://www.youtube.com/live/Cje6UNbEL_g?si=yf83Joj6KIdQtRnm 

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