Engineer Francisco Palao spent 4 years at the Universidad de Granada (UGR) developing what today is known as IActive: a technology that allows software to obtain solutions to problem “the same way a human person would do it, analyzing thousands of variables and alternatives in a smaller amount of time and without making mistakes”, according to the young man himself.

This technology is useful for developing different types of solutions: from smart assistants for personalized services, to advanced systems that assist in complex decision making, or smart business management applications.

With the objective of taking this technology to the market and developing its various uses in areas like health and tourism, Palao and four researchers from UGR founded the company IActive, which has received various international prizes. Moreover, one member is still in the original research group, from where he plans to transfer all his progress to IActive in order to continue developing the technology. Only in that manner, its true mission is explained: “The technological transfer of the progress made in AI, from research centers to the market, in order to add value to society”, states Palao.

In this way, IActive has specialized in developing innovative, technological products for other start-ups, businesses, and organizations. “This is closely tied with one of the most important innovations that we have implemented at IActive, which is combining our own leading technology in AI with innovation methodologies, that we import from Silicon Valley [United States], to market new technological products” states Palao. His object, other than finding a solution to his clients’ problems, is to allow them to be successful in the market by positioning their products.

On the other hand, the TR35 winner has created various start-ups (of which he is cofounder and advisor) focused on different markets in which IActive’s technology adds value, and in which he and his teams had previous experience. “For each of them I searched for people specialized in those sectors, who manage the business day to day”, explains Palao. “From IActive, we provide agile software development services and AI technology to speed up the sales and market positioning process, in other words, we are their innovation partner”.

To this day, the young entrepreneur has cofounded four new companies following this model. Notable among these is Cognocare, a system that assists in clinical decision making in oncology, that designs, modifies, and updates detailed personalized treatments, specified for each patient in an automatic way and in a matter of seconds, based on existing clinical practice guides. The system allows the doctors to manage the entire treatment, based on the patient’s progress and his preferences, in order to dedicate more time to it. Furthermore, it automates dosages and assigned resources (in case of being a hospital patient), which reduces costs and errors, and it can be integrated into any electronic clinical history.

Another of his start-ups, PrimerLife - still inactive-, is also geared towards the health sector, since it is a platform that offers users AI based tools to improve their well-being by connecting people with similar health problems and experts. In the tourism field, he has co-created Nativoo, a personal assistant that learns with experience and offers personal recommendations to tourists. He is also president of Doolphy, a smart cloud-based project manager.

Palao has a global vocation: IActive headquarters are located in Granada and Silicon Valley (like some of his other start-ups) and this as well as his other startups, work for clients in different parts of the world, both in Europe and America. This vocation led him to be chosen to attend one of the prestigious programs of the Singularity University (U.S.A.), an academic institution whose mission is “to assemble, educate and inspire a new generation of leaders who strive to understand and utilize the exponential advancement of technologies to address humanity’s great challenges”.

In the young entrepreneur’s opinion, the greatest innovation he has achieved to date is not solely technological: “The combination of AI with agile innovation methodologies is maximizing and accelerating the reach of our scientific research towards society”, now that “what is really having a great impact are the projects in which IActive’s technology has been applied to, thanks to innovative proposals from their clients”.

The TR35 panel members also have appreciated Palao’s value. Gonzalo Martin-Villa, executive director of Wayra (Telefónica Digital), highlights that “his ability to create jobs in emerging economies is worthy of praise”, while John Janas, president of the analysis and market strategy company Janas International Enterprises, points out that “one of his main attributes is his job as mentor for start-ups, helping other young entrepreneurs to develop their ideas”.

Meanwhile, Constanza Nieto, founder and executive director of the technology business consulting company Globaltech Bridge, assures that this young man “is truly an example for the world, since he is not only a global innovator but also a serial entrepreneur who has been successful at applying his technology to different fields and dedicates part of his time to inspire others towards the innovation path, which makes his truly special”. – Translated by Alfredo Corral