On 13 july, SHINE’s CEO Carina Dantas and Carla Reigada were in Crete for PETRA 2026.
Together with Maria Jose Santofimia Romero, Carina Dantas chaired the workshop “Advancing Smart Mirrors to Early Detect and Monitor Cancer Late-Effects through an Ethical and Participatory Approach” for the MAYA Project.
Bringing together researchers from across Europe, the workshop showcased how AI, smart mirrors, trustworthy digital environments and participatory innovation, such as PPI, can support Adolescents and Young Adults (AYA) after cancer, while ensuring that ethical, social and human factors remain at the centre of technological development.
Our CEO was also pleased to present the paper “Embedding Patient and Public Involvement in Digital Health Innovation: MAYA’s Co-Research Framework”, developed together with Carla Reigada and with support from Carlos Iglesias, Miriam Cabrita, Marius Geanta, MD, PhD, Georgia Karanasiou, PMP, Dimitris Fotiadis, and Elísio Costa.
In the MAYA Project, we have embedded Patient and Public Involvement from the very beginning by engaging AYA cancer survivors and caregivers as co-researchers, as well as through our European Living Labs.
For Carina Dantas, this is one of the most important messages of the project: meaningful participation is not an add-on to digital innovation, it is what makes innovation relevant, trustworthy and capable of delivering real impact in people’s lives.
“It was inspiring to learn from the other eight excellent contributions presented throughout the workshop. Together, the presentations highlighted the remarkable potential of multidisciplinary collaboration to advance ethical, human-centred AI for cancer survivorship”, says SHINE’s CEO.
The PErvasive Technologies Related to Assistive Environments (PETRA) conference is a interdisciplinary conference that focuses on computational and engineering approaches to improve the quality of life and enhance human performance in a wide range of settings, in the workplace, at home, in public spaces, urban environments, and others. PETRA means “stone” in Greek and the conference addresses important human living needs bringing together researchers, practitioners, and innovators to advance the state of the art in pervasive and assistive technologies.