President Milanović Meets with University of Zagreb Formula AI Team Delegation

The President of the Republic Zoran Milanović received today in the Office of the President a University of Zagreb Formula AI team thatwon third place at the prestigious EIT Health Hub Know-how and Innovation Community – Innovation Days Winners’ Event 2021.

Students Paola Danjek and Barbara Bilić won first place at the competition held in Zagreb, and third place at the EIT Health Innovation Days 2021 Winners’ Event, under the professional guidance of their mentors Miro Hegedić and Filip Stipančić from Lean Startup Croatia. During their meeting with President Milanović, they presented their concept of a digital communicator for persons with aphasia – TONGUEO, which was rated high in a competition including 32 teams from 20 European countries. TONGUEO is a digital communicator whose primary task is to facilitate everyday functional communication of persons with aphasia due to speech loss resulting from a stroke.

Presently, TONGUEO is one of the teams participating in a six-month SPOCK programme – a startup incubator of the University of Zagreb’s Faculty of Electric Engineering and Computing. With support and professional guidance, they are working on the development of the concept and the first prototype. In the context of post-stroke patients, TONGUEO is a prime example of how Croatia offers innovations and new solutions in this area.

Besides the students and their mentors attending the meeting was University of Zagreb EIT Health Hub coordinator Vlatka Petrović, and alongside President Milanović was the Commissioner of the President for Sports Željko Jovanović.

PHOTO: Office of the President of the Republic of Croatia / Ana Marija Katić