Students of the Master’s Program in Neuroengineering of the Santos Dumont Institute (ISD) participated, on the morning of Friday, April 4th, in a lecture on entrepreneurship and innovation aimed at the Centelha Program, promoted by the Brazilian Support Service for Micro and Small Enterprises (Sebrae RN). The lecture is part of a series of initiatives aiming to increasingly integrate research, innovation and market, in order to allow products developed by researchers to reach society more quickly and efficiently. The event took place in the auditorium of the Edmond and Lily Safra International Institute of Neurosciences (IIN-ELS), one of ISD’s units located in Macaíba (RN), 

During the morning, Sebrae’s business consultant Gilka Fernandes spoke about the paths to be taken in order to register projects in the Centelha public notice, which offers financial resources and training for people interested in entrepreneurship. The Centelha Program is promoted by the Brazilian Ministry of Science and Technology (MCTI), in partnership with the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq), the National Council of State Foundations for Research Support (CONFAP), the CERTI Foundation and the Financier of Studies and Projects (Finep). Among the main objectives of the program are: the creation of new technology-based companies; the development of innovative solutions in various areas that are of social and business interest; the establishment of a culture of innovative entrepreneurship and the consequent strengthening of the country’s innovation ecosystems.

“We understand that we need to get together with universities, academies and students themselves, to help them get this idea out of their heads. We want this student to understand that this idea he has can go to the market and be transformed into an innovative business that will solve an existing pain or problem”, says Gilka Fernandes.

According to the consultant, it is necessary to strengthen the union between the market and scientific research so that they walk side by side in the search for more efficient services and products that will have an impact on the population. “We need to work together: the market needs to pay attention to the Academies and the students, because they are the ones who are there researching, studying, and seeing in more depth some aspects related to people’s needs. When we talk about ‘innovative business’, we have this perspective that it must come from research, from a structured base of knowledge, so that it can be taken to the market with a foundation”, she says.

The professor-researcher at ISD Fabrício Brasil, who had two advisees approved in the Global Grad Show’s entrepreneurship public notice, spoke about the importance of expanding students’ vision of the possibilities that exist from the research. “We’ve been working a lot with this idea of innovation and entrepreneurship here, because we do a lot of cool stuff, but many students continue with the idea that the Academy is all about scientific publications. We have been trying to change their vision, because the innovation market is very promising, and we see that many of the projects developed here have great potential for this”, highlights Fabrício Brasil.

In addition to the projects of the masters in Neuroengineering Rommel Araújo and Mouhamed Zorkot, who were selected for the Global Grad Show in 2021, two former ISD students, sisters Tâmara and Tássia Nunes, were selected in the call of the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) for the Human Resources Program in Strategic Areas (RHAE), which aims to support projects that contribute to scientific, technological, innovation and entrepreneurship development in Brazil.