Corporate

This section gives voice to companies and organisations that have worked with INESC TEC in various projects and activities. A good relationship and good examples are fundamental ingredients for science and technology to serve society with equal amounts of enthusiasm and professionalism.

Rui Monteiro, CEO, NAU21 Software for the future, Ltd.

• "INESC TEC is a benchmark institute and has proved itself in the technological research field, integrating researchers with a huge reputation in its staff, giving us security and comfort to embrace highly complex and innovative projects."

History of the relationship between the company and INESC TEC

Business areas

Software Development

Title of the project

INESC TEC Centres with which the company collaborated

HASLab - High Assurance Software Laboratory

LIAAD - Artificial Intelligence and Decision Support Laboratory

Statement about the Project

Nau 21 focuses its activity in the specialised consultancy and in the development of innovative computing solutions that are focused on the business area of financial services, namely in insurances. We have been analysing the applicability of the technology in the insurance field, bringing benefits to the main players on the industry (insurers, policyholders, agents, reinsurers and brokers) through the implementation of disruptive business models, optimisation of business processes and the fight against fraud.

The collaboration with INESC TEC began in 2018 and aims to achieve an ambitious SIS^1 (smart insurance system for one-time-insurance) project, which is based on the creation of a distributed and collaborative platform developed in Blockchain using smart contracts with computer algorithms that automatically execute the contractual terms, benefiting from the characteristics that the blockchain technology provides. Basically, it is a technology that registers data in a distributed way across all elements of a network, reducing the number of intermediaries and using mechanisms to establish trust or consensus regarding the stored data. It offers integrity, transparency, immutability, simplicity and, above all, the principle of "non-repudiation", which is crucial when we wish to automate the execution of contracts.  

We extended our collaboration with INESC TEC in 2019 by incorporating a component in artificial intelligence in the architecture of the solution that provides great benefits of the collected data to the entities that use the SIS^1 solution in a collaborative way, predicting about events that are relevant to their business , acting as a "specialist" in specific domains.

The partnership with INESC TEC has produced very satisfactory results at different levels, not only allowing to enhance the internal capacity for technological research activities, but also having an important role in identifying and incorporating relevant entities to participate in the project.

The main goal with this SIS^1 project is to effectively contribute to the transparency and simplification of business operations, across the entire value chain, bringing customers closer to their companies. This approach will allow the creation of faster, simpler and more personalised services and offers.

We believe that the positive impact of this solution will be global given the level of technological innovation and the ability that is provided to the users of the solution in order to explore disruptive business models with high levels of automation and fighting fraud.

This project will produce interesting results at a scientific and technological level, namely for the community that develops blockchain solutions, regarding the availability of cryptographic techniques for accessing data according to their type and the purpose of its use.

Opinion on your experience working with INESC TEC

The collaboration with INESC TEC has been very fruitful where there is a clear convergence of interests. The interest of NAU21 in affirming itself as a global reference player in the development and implementation of solutions in Blockchain, as well as INESC TEC's interest in applying knowledge and results generated in the research of technology transfer projects, seeking to create value in the market. 

In this context, the experience of collaboration with INESC TEC has been based on an interesting cooperation environment. There has been a great opening, critical sense and availability to discuss and design the use case that supports this project.

The role of INESC TEC has been decisive in the field of scientific research of a technology that despite being recognised as very promising, is still very recent and with few examples of its use. We’ll be facing a huge challenge in creating the necessary conditions to give a scalable, robust and applicational architecture to this project, allowing for a consistent market exploration.

The most advanced way of using Blockchain technology is the so-called Smart Contracts: computer algorithms that automatically execute the contractual terms, when the pre-programmed conditions are verified.

The design and development of collaborative computer solutions with distributed databases entail enormous challenges related to GDPR, data confidentiality and security in transactions, which bring enormous pressure to the technological architecture that supports the implementation of automatic contracts.

Smart contracts are the foundation of the SIS^1 project. Given the low level of maturity of the technology used, it is clear to us the need to continuously invest in scientific and technological research with a pragmatic contribution to the creation of components and solutions.  

We are counting on the competence of INESC TEC's researchers to join us on this journey and we are sure that our success will allow us to be at the forefront in the design and development of solutions in blockchain.