On June 5th, Mariana Nunes and Tiago Bolãnos were awarded 1st place in the "SPARK Research Challenge: Kid-friendly Poster Competition" during the Center for Responsible AI’s Summer Demo Day. The event was hosted at TUMO Coimbra.

Their winning poster showcased innovative research developed as part of Project HALO, led by Unbabel in collaboration with the Instituto de Telecomunicações (IT) and other partners, under the guidance of Hugo Plácido da Silva.

Designed for a young audience aged 12 to 18, the poster explained how HALO works and highlighted the specific contributions of IT, aiming to make complex technology as accessible as possible. HALO is a communication system that integrates EMG (electromyography) with LLMs (Large Language Models) to provide an alternative means of interaction.

Each user is assigned a personalized AI Persona that learns their preferences, habits, and communication style. When someone sends the user a message, the LLM generates multiple response options based on this Persona. The user hears these options through earphones and simply raises their eyebrows to select and send the preferred response.

IT contribution includes the development of a textile headband with embedded electrodes, worn on the user's forehead, which detects EMG signals from eyebrow movements. This signal is processed and classified in real time, enabling gesture recognition (rest/contraction) with no prior calibration required.

HALO has already been tested by individuals with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), people who have lost the ability to speak but retain some facial muscle control.

About the Researchers

Mariana Nunes is pursuing a PhD in Biomedical Engineering at Instituto Superior Técnico and Carnegie Mellon University, with a focus on Imagiology, Biosignals, and Biomedical Instrumentation. Her research applies machine learning to biosignal analysis to drive innovation in health technologies.
🔗 More about Mariana Nunes

Tiago Bolãnos is a researcher/technician in the “Next Gen AI” project at IT, coordinated by Mário Figueiredo and André Martins (IT/IST).
🔗 More about Tiago Bolãnos