Inês Henriques, Virginia Tech alumna, named CEO of Ynvisible
Virginia Tech College of Engineering
Inês Henriques, a master’s and doctoral graduate of the Charles E. Via Jr. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Virginia Tech, was named CEO of Ynvisible, a company located in Portugal.
Prior to her education at Virginia Tech, Henriques obtained an environmental engineering degree from Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal, in 1998.
Henriques earned both a master’s degree and a doctoral degree from the civil and environmental engineering program at Virginia Tech, in 2002 and 2006, respectively.
In 2007, Henriques joined the team of professionals at YDreams, as a principal investigator, to lead its reality computing initiative, which included the ambitious Ynvisible projects.
“Initially we hired Ines for YDreams because of her research capabilities. She was the director of a three-year research initiative to develop electrochromic displays. During that period she showed leadership, communication, and management capabilities,” António Câmara said. Câmara is YDreams’ CEO and Ynvisible’s president, as well as a civil and environmental engineering Ph.D. graduate of Virginia Tech.
Ynvisible is a subsidiary of YDreams, founded in June 2000 on the Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal, campus, by Câmara, José Miguel Remédio, Eduardo Dias, Edmundo Nobre and Nuno Correia, professors and researchers at the university.
At the age of 34, Henriques was named one of the “Most Promising Women to Watch” by the popular Portuguese magazine, REVISTA ÚNICA, in June 2010.
Subsequently, in October 2010, Henriques was named CEO of Ynvisible.
“Ynvisible’s main goal is to integrate electrochromic displays on a variety of objects, adding animation and interactivity at a disruptively low cost,” Henriques said.
“It is a chemistry-based technology where electrochromic materials reversibly change color as a result of the application of an electric charge. The displays are multi-layer devices with a structure that resembles a battery, with two electrodes, two layers of electroactive materials, each coupled with each electrode, and an electrolyte between them, serving as an insulator and an ion conducting layer,” Henriques explained.
Since becoming Ynvisible’s CEO, the company was listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange on February 9, 2011.
“Henriques attracted over 90 investors in the pre-launch in Germany,” Câmara said.
In March of 2011, Ynvisible signed a partnership with Xennia, the world’s leading industrial inkjet solution provider. Xennia is optimizing the chemical formulations of Ynvisible’s inks, enabling rapid production of its displays in large-scale printing processes.
In May of 2011, Henriques was instrumental in securing funding from the Portuguese National Strategic Reference Framework (NSRF, in Portuguese QREN) to support Ynvisible’s commercialization and internationalization efforts, in a project totaling over one million euros.
Henriques has authored several scientific papers and patents, and has received several awards for her research and academic achievements.