Tec students win third place in UTSA data science tournament

Tec students have won third place in the UTSA Draper Data Science Business Plan Competition with EpyDiagnosis, a project that seeks to detect cancerous pulmonary nodules through neural networks.

The competition, held on April 12 in Texas, had six finalists who presented their business plans to judges at the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) School of Data Science.

Participating were Monterrey campus students Ammadeus Vega, CEO of EpyDiagnosis; Josué Gutiérrez, Operations Director; and Raul Monjaras, Medical Director.

This third place in the competition also earned them a prize of ten thousand dollars.

“The funds obtained will be used for the neural network and to make modifications that would have taken more time. It encourages us to keep taking part in other projects,” pointed out Vega, who is also an Economics and Law student.

EpyDiagnosis, created in 2020, combines artificial intelligence with data analytics in order to revolutionize early diagnosis of lung cancer and optimize treatment.

The UTSA Draper Data Science Business Plan Competition is designed to train entrepreneurial students in North America and promote commercial projects that utilize data science to generate value.

“It encourages us to keep taking part in other projects.” - Ammadeus Vega

Seeking to streamline diagnosis

The aim of EpyDiagnosis is to diagnose lung cancer with the integration of data science and artificial intelligence, implementing algorithms and neural networks for medical data analytics.

“Part of the challenge is how to visualize the parameters used by a radiologist and translate these into artificial intelligence. These parameters are the gray scales or cross-sections that a tomography might have,” explained Josué, who is also an Economics student.

At the start of 2024, the students began a collaboration with Highly Specialized IMSS Medical Unit No. 25 in Monterrey, for medical validation of the functions of EpyDiagnosis.

“We’ll be publishing a paper in collaboration with them in the coming months that will evaluate the neural network. Some other elements that will be evaluated will be its efficiency and accuracy.

“After the paper is published, we could go on to another phase at the IMSS itself,” said Vega.

The origin of EpyDiagnosis

Four years ago, Ammadeus Vega won the Entrepreneurial Talent Scholarship for his EpyDiagnosis project, which began as a tool for monitoring the vital signs of patients with chronic diseases.

“Epy was created because a relative had epilepsy and it was going to be a tool for that disease.

“It then became a tool focused on lung cancer. Now, we’ve been working on a neural network to detect that cancer,” explained Ammadeus.

The Entrepreneurial Talent Scholarship consists of up to 70% support towards the cost of an undergraduate degree at the Tec. It requires students to have a startup.

Students who receive this scholarship join a support ecosystem for their projects within the Eugenio Garza Lagüera Institute of Entrepreneurship, which offers ideas laboratories, mentoring sessions, and networking, to name but a few.

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