Institutional

An innovative trajectory

Health in DNA

André Ramos, founder of Mindify, and his brother, have always been instigated to think about Health by their father, a biology teacher in public schools. And so it was. His brother became a doctor and André chose Computer Engineering, thinking of its application in medicine. Already in the first semesters of the course, he joined a scientific initiation in the Applied Health Computing group and then did several experiments, published articles, and did his final paper in applied computing in the area.

André believed that Preventive Health would be where he could make the biggest socio-economic impact, so he joined friends to start venturing into technologies for Sports to encourage healthy living habits. It was then that he founded the company Requisito Tecnologia, in 2007, while still an undergraduate student. At the time the terms “startup” and “corporate innovation” were virtually unknown.

His early experiences in research and entrepreneurship qualified him to enter the Master’s Degree program at the Department of Biomedical Engineering at UNICAMP, a Latin American reference in Health R&D. In the Masters Degree André had the opportunity to study medical subjects such as human physiology and rehabilitation, and was educated about the real challenges of hospitals. In parallel, he also participated in numerous entrepreneurship actions in partnership with his professors and the INOVA-UNICAMP agency.

Challenges and risks of entrepreneurship

In 2010, with his master’s degree already completed, André was able to dedicate himself to Requisito Tecnologia, which began to operate in fact. The company was then selected by the CEI – Entrepreneurship and Innovation Center of the Federal University of Goiás (state of Brazil), and started its journey in the sports segment with a software program for the automation of Physical Evaluation protocols, which was acquired by more than three thousand gyms, nutrition clinics, and self-employed professionals, still in CD media.

Realizing the opportunities for innovation due to the Soccer World Cup and the Olympic Games to be held in Brazil, Requisito invested everything it could to prepare itself, and won a public bid called GECopa, from the Ministry of Sports.

The project’s goal was to make software available to public schools that offered a series of physical, neuromotor, and even genetic evaluation tests to identify the sporting potential of children. Thus, a portion of the children could be directed to high performance sports, while others could be referred to sports that have more aptitude for quality of life purposes.

The company’s goal was to leave a significant legacy for Brazil due to the great sporting events, but there was a budget cut by the public administrators and the bid was canceled. Requisito Tecnologia was then left with the losses and a demotivated team, without perspectives. Quitting came close to happening.

Vision and partnership that changed everything

The motivation to restart the activities came with the invitation to participate in a business acceleration process carried out by a renowned accelerator.

André, while still an undergraduate, had identified that even elite hospitals had difficulty encouraging their clinical staff to collect robust data. With the acceleration, he decided to look for solutions to this problem not solved even by the largest IT companies in the world.

He went in search of a new partner with complementary skills to his own. It then brought a former scholarship holder from Requisito Tecnologia, Daniel Lucena, then a Master and now a PhD in Artificial Intelligence (AI), to act as a researcher and make the bridge between Mindify and the centers of excellence in training human resources in IT and applied research.

With renewed energy, a new team and a new purpose, in 2017 the company “pivoted” to invest primarily in Medicine. That’s when Requisito Tecnologia changed its name, and started to be called Mindify, the same name as its software.

Together, André and Daniel have formed several partnerships with renowned doctors and nurses, and with research centers, from which they have created a series of deep tech innovations that today make Mindify unique and impact millions of people.

Victory Story

Mindify is currently one of the most awarded healthtechs in Brazil, and has already secured investments of more than R$10 million. It also has reference clients in its portfolio, such as Hospital das Clínicas de São Paulo (public hospital), Moinhos de Vento Hospital (private hospital), Clínicas Amor Saúde (private clinic network), Cerner Enviza, Bayer, several Unimeds (private health insurance companies), and many more.

Competence, partnership and focus

Leadership that makes a difference

André P. Ramos

Master's degree in Biomedical Engineering from UNICAMP and Computer Engineer from PUC-GO. He is currently CEO of Mindify and an activist for Open Innovation. He has participated in the elaboration and execution of dozens of award-winning projects as a consultant and as a manager. Among the awards are the FINEP Innovation Award, the official recognition from the Ministry of Sports, as well as awards from Bayer, 100 Open Startups, and international recognitions such as in Tokyo by NTT Data and Plug & Play Japan.

Daniel V. Lucena

PhD and Master in Artificial Intelligence (AI) from UFG and Computer Engineer from PUC-GO. He is currently a university professor and researcher at Mindify. He has extensive experience as manager of IT teams having coordinated the certification of the then Requisito Tecnologia, now Mindify, in MPS-Br. He has coordinated the creation of several successful software projects and for over 10 years has been doing applied research in computational mathematics with emphasis on automated disease diagnosis using AI.

Recognition that motivates

A history full of recognized innovations

2023/february

Partnership with CEIA - UFG

Partnership with CEIA - UFG to invest in innovations to help medical teams apply clinical guidelines on a large scale.