The city, with global funding of €150.000, will support the activities of innovators, entrepreneurs and creatives willing to make Porto a true living laboratory, with a dynamic ecosystem that generates more opportunities for growth and development.
The program is structured around three main pillars: Pillar 1: Innovation and Experimentation, Pillar 2: Entrepreneurship e Pillar 3: Creativity.
Promoting innovation and experimentation through initiatives that enable the testing and demonstration of new technological solutions for digital transition and innovation. The aim is to foster a dynamic collaborative environment within the community that transforms the city.
Strengthening the innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem by energising the city’s tech community and fostering collaborative networks, positioning Porto as a leading hub for entrepreneurship and technology.
Recognising creativity as a driver of innovation and social cohesion by promoting artistic and cultural interventions in public spaces. The interaction between technology and artistic expression strengthens culture as a central element of urban dynamics, making the city more culturally accessible and attractive.
Mindshake e Quarteirão Criativo
Continuation of the “Bombarda Circular” pilot, expanding its focus to simple and collaborative technologies applied to urban circularity. It transforms the district into a micro-laboratory where the community and local businesses test sustainable practices with real impact on the territory.
Porto4Ageing – Universidade do Porto
In-depth study of the active ageing ecosystem in Porto, mapping solutions, institutions and practices. It produces strategic recommendations for municipal policies and integrates European good practices through the EIP on AHA network.
VIVA Lab, CRU Creative Hub e Cenário Resiliente
A major initiative in maker culture, circular economy, and citizen-driven innovation. It includes workshops, prototyping, talks, and culminates in a public festival. It positions Porto within the global Maker Faire circuit and generates the Digital Roadmap for Creative Circularity.
UPTEC
A matchmaking platform for entrepreneurs that facilitates the creation of founding teams. It connects profiles based on values, skills, and ambition, complemented by in-person events. It increases the maturity and density of Porto’s startup ecosystem.
Pluggable.ai
A pilot project that uses FAN OF THE MATCH® technology to analyze audience emotions and engagement at events. It supports municipal decision-making in culture, tourism, and safety, reinforcing Porto as a people-centered living lab city.
Native Scientists
This program connects children with scientists from their own hometown, fostering scientific literacy and equal access. The current edition introduces a digital platform of experimental resources for teachers, further extending its impact across the municipality.
Porto Tech Hub
An annual event that brings together the tech community to discuss trends, AI, cybersecurity, and innovation. It strengthens Porto’s position as a technology hub while driving networking, talent development, and upskilling.
Oporto Forte
An AI-powered early-warning system for burnout, based on self-assessments and linguistic analysis. Tested in coworking spaces and startups, it contributes to healthier work environments and highlights well-being solutions for the tech sector.
Cláudia Martinho
A generative soundscape created from environmental data and bioelectrical signals of a magnolia at the intersection of Santo André and Santo Ildefonso. The project offers an immersive sensory experience that enhances environmental perception and explores the relationship between body, technology, and place.
S4RA
A work that intertwines desire, memory, and care through algorithmic glitches and choreographic gestures. Porto’s architecture serves as a sensitive framework to reflect on vulnerability, emotional labor, and resistance to capitalist rhythms.
Francisco Pedro Oliveira
A soundscape inspired by Porto’s historic water networks, focusing on the Arca de Água de Mijavelhas. Presented in a binaural format, it invites an intimate listening experience of the underground flows and the liquid memories that traverse the city.
Mariana Caló e Francisco Queimada
A photographic and sound archive that examines urban inscriptions and graffiti as contemporary archaeological traces. The project maps marks, symbols, and narratives across the city’s surfaces, revealing layers of identity, resistance, and collective memory.
Ruca Bourbon
A video that blends archival footage, animation, and algorithmic manipulation to create a sensory cartography of Porto. The city is presented as a mutable organism, intertwining times and images in a dreamlike, fragmented flow.
Elisabete Sousa
An augmented reality installation that introduces hybrid beings and digital forms into the urban space. The work activates fissures between the real and the virtual, proposing a sensory coexistence between different layers of the city.
Fá Maria
An audiovisual installation built from queer and trans testimonies about living in Porto. The project creates an affective and political mapping of the city, intertwining memory, identity, and soundscape to make often-marginalized experiences visible.
Tiago Cadete
A sound piece presented on Rua de Fernandes Tomás, where accounts from those who live in or pass through the area overlap with the visual experience. The work inhabits the boundary between observation, fiction, and urban memory.
Diana Policarpo
An experimental sound composition based on the mapping of the Douro Coal Basin. Using biosonification of fungi and plants combined with human voices, the project creates an interspecies listening experience that reflects on contamination, resistance, and ecological regeneration.
Maria Constanza Ferreira
An augmented reality installation that reinterprets popular shrines dedicated to lost souls. The work creates a ‘digital alminha’ in Porto, evoking rituals of care, migration, spirituality, and memory in a contemporary memento mori.
The Open Call is a unique opportunity for startups, companies, universities, research centers, associations, and the artistic community to develop and test new solutions in Porto. If you are part of the city’s innovation, entrepreneur and creative ecosystem, here’s what awaits you:
Funding to drive ideas
Financial support to turn innovative projects into reality.
On-the-ground experimentation
The opportunity to test and implement solutions in a real-world environment, contributing to the city’s digital transition, entrepreneurship, and cultural development.
Collaboration and cocreation
Connect with startups, researchers, companies, artists and institutions to develop impactful projects.
Visibility and recognition
Featured exposure on the Municipality of Porto and Porto Digital’s communication channels, amplifying the reach of your initiative.
Direct impact on the city
Actively contribute to make Porto a dynamic city.
Promotion of creativity
If you have a project that can make a difference, this is your opportunity!