Today’s guest entry is written by MBA participant, Alessio Orlando, from Italy. Other members of his startup team are: Mohammad Alsele (Jordanian), Abhijat Chahal (Indian), Martina Heyse (Brazilian/Italian), Qin Li (German), and Zhe Yuan (Chinese).

When you start classes at IMD, if you still do not know that Lausanne is a hub for start-ups, IMD and Entrepreneurship Professor Benoit Leleux will make sure you are fully aware very quickly.

With the annual IMD Startup Competition, the school recruits the most exciting ideas and MBA and Executive MBA participants work on their projects.

Our group has the opportunity to work with Intento, a start up in the field of MedTech which developed a technology to help severely paralyzed stroke patients recover motor function in upper limbs. The solution is based on functional electrical stimulation and it is by far the most user-friendly solution on the market.

Intento founders are two young PhDs from École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne. Their competence and communication skills allowed us to take an immediate deep dive into the challenges the company is facing. The product will soon be launched on the market and we are all very excited to help them in this specific phase. Visiting Intento’s office and getting a demo on their incredible product was inspirational.

In fact, apart from the content of the project, this is also a tremendous opportunity to see what a start-up looks like from an inside perspective. We can talk with real entrepreneurs, discuss how they came up with the idea, how the idea evolved into the final product and, of course, how they are dealing with the financing challenges. The founders’ stories are full of passion and persistency. The presence of IMD, EPFL, University of Lausanne and big healthcare companies create a very dynamic and favourable environment for fresh ideas to become a reality, especially for MedTech start-ups.

group-5-intento-picture_crop

Now it is on us to give a valuable contribution and help their dream come true.

Alessio

0 Like