How two young people built “smart cooling clothing” for menopause: the BioInnovation Awards 2025/2026 final in practice

Imagine this: two young people meet in an educational program where they learn what innovation in healthcare really looks like, not like a school project, but as something that could one day change lives.

And then they do it.

They choose a problem that is often not talked about openly, even though it affects a huge number of women: hot flashes during menopause. Instead of “just another app,” they go to the core of the issue, the body, signals, comfort. They build a prototype of a wearable solution that, using biosensors and intelligent cooling control, can intervene at the right moment, ideally even before the symptoms fully arrive.

The team is called Menothera and their story is exactly why it’s worth experiencing the Lifbee Academy final.

It’s easy to miss that a generation is growing here that isn’t afraid to propose its own solutions. And we should be proud of that and support them.

The BioInnovation Awards 2025/2026 final took place on Friday, February 6, 2026, at The Spot in Sky Park in Bratislava. It was the climax of the 6th year of the Lifbee Academy program, the moment when 9 teams publicly showed what they had created over the past months.

Behind them were 4 months of education and 4 months of an incubator (mentoring, consultations, prototyping, and first validation), during which they focused on 2 topics:

Life Sciences Lab focused on platforms for personalized medicine, meaning how to connect science, data, and the healthcare system so that the result helps in practice: both doctors and patients.

EnviroTech Lab addressed sustainable urban ecosystems, the city as a connected system of energy, water, waste, transport, and human behavior. The goal was to find solutions that can be launched in reality and have a clear logic of impact.

Simona Held Veselá a Matej Held, co-founders of Lifbee

Alexander Feťkovský, CEO SanaClis

The evening opened with introductory speeches by Simona Held Veselá, Matej Held (founders of Lifbee Academy), and Alexander Feťkovský (CEO of SanaClis): “Young people need to be supported, because when one person starts creating something positive, they also create something bigger than themselves - trust, cooperation, sharing, and ultimately prosperity that spreads into the wider community.” All three agreed on this in their speeches.

The winner of the Life Sciences Lab Menothera

Menothera: when a theme becomes a prototype

The winner of the Life Sciences Lab was the Menothera team. The team consists of Tatiana Petrikovič (business consultant, PhD student) and Martin Macko (software developer, technology innovator).

Their solution focused on menopause, specifically hot flashes and night sweating. They built a wearable prototype with biosensors and automated cooling control, aiming to cool the body at the right time, ideally before symptoms fully start. The key point is that it wasn’t just an idea: the team brought a prototype to the final and examples of specific customers who showed interest.

The €5000 prize was presented by Alexander Feťkovský (CEO of SanaClis), the program’s strategic partner for clinical studies and regulations.

Wastevera: a practical answer to food waste

The winner of the EnviroTech Lab was the Wastevera team. The team consists of Natália Görscová, Anita Pudmerická, and Silvia Perez Hector.

Wastevera develops a natural antimicrobial concentrate from fermentation of dairy by-products that reduces spoilage of fresh fruits and vegetables after harvest. It responds to a major food-waste problem: part of production spoils before it reaches consumers. The solution targets logistics, distributors, and processors and is a sustainable alternative to synthetic fungicides, which are increasingly regulated.

The €5,000 prize was presented by Zuzana Thullnerová (CEO of the Center for Philanthropy, representative of the Tipsport Foundation).

Audience Award: EATaime

The Audience Award went to the EATaime team (Life Sciences Lab): Miriam Dojčarová, Simona Almášiová, and Sophie Červenáková.

EATaime is a digital wellness app that connects food, emotions, stress, and digestive symptoms into understandable patterns. The goal is to help people better recognize connections and communicate them more clearly to professionals.

Šimon Rovder (CTO and co-founder of Powerful Medical)

Powerful Medical: what it means to build healthcare AI so it works in practice

The keynote was delivered by Šimon Rovder (CTO and co-founder of Powerful Medical). He spoke about the fact that in healthcare (and especially in medical AI) it isn’t enough to have a “good model” or a nice technological idea. What matters is whether the solution is created in contact with reality: with people who have the problem, with those who solve it every day, and within an environment where the rules of practice and regulation apply.

And this is where he pointed out something he noticed in the final presentations: during the program, the teams learned that the foundation is a real problem and a real customer, not an idea created at a desk. What stood out was that they worked with the market, asked the right questions, and gradually verified whether their solution would truly help someone. According to Šimon, this is a big advantage, because these two elements, contact with the customer and solving a specific problem , were also key in their own startup journey.

He connected it naturally with his own experience: when a startup is truly built on customer contact and solving a real problem, over time it turns into something with measurable impact. And according to him, that’s exactly what they went through as well.

The result of that journey today is Powerful Medical a company that, through medical AI, helps detect heart-attack risks early and, in his words, contributes each year to saving thousands of people. More and more hospitals are gradually deploying their solutions, which is the toughest test of whether a technology really works in practice, not just on paper.

Katarína Kretter from Envi-PAK, Laura Martonová from VÚB bank

Acknowledgements

This kind of final does not happen without people who give it their time, experience, and trust.

We thank the jury:

• Life Sciences Lab: Alexander Feťkovský (SanaClis), David Stíbal (i&i Prague), Martin Popovič (Catalyst Scientific), Paulína Böhmerová (ESET).

• EnviroTech Lab: Katarína Kretter (ENVI-PAK), Laura Martonová (VÚB Banka), Michal Csonga (Zero One Hundred), Michal Nešpor (Crowdberry and CBIM).

We thank the partners of BioInnovation Awards 2025/2026:

• SanaClis — strategic partner for clinical research and regulations

• VÚB Banka and ENVI-PAK — patrons of the EnviroTech Lab

• i&i Prague — patron of the Life Sciences Lab

• Tipsport Foundation — main foundation partner

• Event partners: Eduvalue, Simona Biosystems, ESET Foundation, CB Investment Management

• Grant support: Orange Foundation, ČSOB Foundation

• Growth partners: Brichta&Partners, the Spot

• Special thanks: RapidNext for collaboration on the creation of innovative trophies.

The 7th year of Lifbee Academy is open

Applications for the 7th year of Lifbee Academy are now open until 30.4.2026. If you have the courage to create ideas and want to learn how innovations are built, apply at https://www.lifbeeacademy.com/.