SPECTRO: Start-Up Founders Webinar Series

EA Editor October 23, 2026 SPECTRO
SPECTRO: Start-Up Founders Webinar Series
23 Oct 2026
SPECTRO
October 23, 2026 EA Editor

From Deep-Tech Research to Startup CTO: Launching the MSL Startup Founders Webinar Series

How do researchers and engineers take complex algorithmic research from university labs and turn it into scalable commercial technology?

Across Europe, higher education programmes in robotics, autonomous systems, and cybersecurity produce remarkable engineering talent. Yet, the leap from academic proof-of-concept to building an early-stage venture, architecting robust production infrastructure, navigating compliance, and achieving product-market fit presents unique challenges that textbooks rarely cover.

To provide clear, practical guidance on this transition, consortium leader 28DIGITAL, in partnership with the EIT Digital Master School, is launching the MSL Startup Founders Webinar Series. This recurring initiative brings students directly into dialogue with European founders sharing candid reflections on their entrepreneurial paths.

 

Inaugural Session: Christophe Geudens, Co-Founder & CTO of Prismos

The opening session features Christophe Geudens, Co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of Prismos, a Belgian technology venture developing specialised AI systems for regulatory risk and public policy analysis.

Christophe completed his PhD in Knowledge Representation at KU Leuven in 2020 and brings extensive engineering expertise in natural language processing (NLP). At Prismos, he directs the company’s core data infrastructure and AI architecture.

During the webinar, Christophe will explore:

  • The Transition from Student to CTO: Practical decisions, mindset shifts, and challenges encountered moving from doctoral research to startup leadership.
  • The AI and Deep-Tech Landscape from Within: An unvarnished perspective on where genuine commercial opportunities exist and which technical competencies matter most in practice.
  • Architectural Realities: Lessons learned when architecting scalable data systems capable of handling complex regulatory and legal intelligence.
  • Live Student Q&A: A dedicated discussion segment where participating students can ask candid questions about tech hiring, startup culture, and early-stage venture operations.

The session will be opened and moderated by Vilma Djala (28DIGITAL).

 

Why Entrepreneurial Insight Matters for SPECTRO Students

The SPECTRO project (SPECTRO – SPecialised Education programmes in CybersecuriTy and Robotics) equips European graduates with advanced competencies in robotics engineering, autonomous systems, and end-to-end cybersecurity.

While technical excellence remains the core foundation, bridging deep tech with an entrepreneurial mindset offers distinct advantages for SPECTRO candidates:

  1. Handling Regulatory and Operational Risk: Autonomous robotics and digital systems must comply with strict European frameworks, including the EU AI Act, the NIS2 Directive, and the Cyber Resilience Act. Gaining insight into how a startup like Prismos builds systems specifically around regulatory intelligence shows students how compliance considerations shape system design.
  2. Moving Past Lab Simulations: Both cybersecurity tools and robotics pipelines require dependable, production-grade infrastructure. Hearing how an early-stage CTO evaluates technical debt and architectural trade-offs helps students design software that holds up outside controlled laboratory environments.
  3. Encouraging European Deep-Tech Spin-Offs: Europe’s sovereignty in cybersecurity and robotics relies heavily on research commercialisation. Seeing fellow doctoral graduates establish tech ventures demystifies the path to entrepreneurship and inspires students to consider startup creation.

 

Event Details & Registration

 

Official Website of the EU-Co-funded project SPECTRO: https://28digital.eu/eu-collaborations/spectro/

Project Partners:

  1. 28DIGITAL (28DGTL)
  2. Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE)
  3. University of Trento (UNITN)
  4. University of Twente (UT)
  5. University of Rennes (UR1) 
  6. University of Turku (UTU)
  7. EURECOM (GIE)
  8. Babeș-Bolyai University (UBB)
  9. KTH Royal Institute of Technology (KTH)
  10. Aalto University (AALTO)
  11. University of Bologna (UNIBO)
  12. Université Côte d’Azur (UCA) 
  13. Budapest University of Technology and Economics (BME)  
  14. GIM Robotics Oy (GIM)
  15. Evolutionary Archetypes Consulting SL (EAC) 

Associated Partners:

  1. University of the Aegean (AEGEAN)
  2. Politecnico di Bari (POLIBA)

101123118 — SPECTRO — DIGITAL-2022-SKILLS-03

Disclaimer: Co-Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or HADEA. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.