CORDIS gets a sneak preview of our digital future at ICT 2018: Imagine Digital - Connect Europe

This prestigious event, held in Vienna last week, surveyed the EU’s priorities and support for the digital transformation of society and industry. Participants were able to hear directly from the people making it happen, with CORDIS privileged to be among them.

Digital Economy

© Alan Hodgson

Organised by the European Commission and the Austrian Presidency of the Council of the European Union, ICT 2018 took place in Vienna 4-6 December. It attracted over 6000 registrations from 120 countries representing communities of scientists, policymakers and general public ICT-enthusiasts, who benefitted from over 100 speakers and more than 130 exhibitors.

During this highly participatory event, as well as absorbing inspiration from the oftentimes boundlessly enthusiastic innovators themselves, CORDIS was struck by the sheer range of digital innovations on display.

From ‘evolutionary’ robots assembled from AI designs, to an interactive installation exploring plant-human communication, at times the journey through exhibitions felt almost carnivalesque. Until that is, it be remembered that their germination was to meet very real, and often pressing, needs.

Once the sheer ingenuity of the advances on display became habitual, talking to innovators revealed another overarching theme – getting innovations out of the lab and into the marketplace, if we are ever to realise the promise of this smart future.

The Innovation Radar Prize spotlights H2020 delivery

The European Commission's Innovation Radar, established by DG Connect in 2014, offers information about the high potential ICT innovations amongst FP7, CIP & H2020 projects. The associated Innovation Radar Prize inaugurated in 2015, recognises that a successfully concluded project built on excellent science, is not enough alone to achieve the fulfilment of that potential. And so, in his introduction to the 2018 prize at ICT 2018, DG Connect Policy Officer Eoghan O’Neill, explained that in addition to identifying excellence, the initiative also crucially supports and champions it.

Guided by a ‘bottom up’ process, voting by over 50,000 members of the public whittled down a long-list of 48 entrants to four finalists for each of five prize categories: Tech for Society, Excellent Science, Industrial & Enabling Tech, Best Young SME and Best early stage innovation.

Last Wednesday each of the finalists had three minutes to pitch to a highly experienced jury of four, the maturity levels of their innovations. To get the best out of the finalists the jury didn’t pull their punches, with follow-up questions, including ‘Who owns the Intellectual Property?’ and ‘How easy is the technology to reverse engineer?’

To reach this point all of the finalists were already of a high calibre. Watching the pitches, CORDIS was especially impressed with Gr3n’s usage of microwave radiation to ‘upcycle’ PET and polyester, the University of Iceland’s Sound of Vision development of wearable technology to help visually impaired people and NIT’s improvement of real-time quality assurance for additive manufacturing.

Success stories and their ambassadors

While the jury deliberated on their winning selections, CORDIS caught up with two winners from last year.

2017’s overall winner was CATEC. Reflecting on the tangible outcome of the prize, Scientific Advisor Prof Anibal Ollero says, “We got support to go into factories for testing which gave us all the information needed to launch market products...We are working to commercialise the product this year.”

LeanXcale, a category winner from last year, has already secured their first major customer after a market launch this year and has recently secured EUR two million in venture capital. Speaking about ‘breaking out of the lab’, CEO and Co-founder Dr Ricardo Jimenez-Peris says, “It’s a path. You have to get tired of doing research that is looking for funding, rather than solving problems in society.”

And so to Thursday afternoon where, as European Commissioner Mariya Gabriel put it, “It is very appropriate to end ICT 2018 by celebrating such excellence by announcing the winners of the FIWARE and Innovation Radar awards.”

Alongside the energetic audience clapping as each of the winners collected their prize (see a full list here), what most struck CORDIS were some of the winners’ thank you remarks. As a flavour, and reflecting the spirit of the prize, the last word goes to Prof Runar Unnthorsson representing 'Sound of Vision', who said simply, “I really hope we can bring this to beneficiaries.”

For more information, please see:
Event website

Countries

Austria