The DIGI-B-CUBE project, funded under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation programme, aims to establish a cross-border and cross-sectoral ecosystem that combines digital innovations from the IT sector with three key important industries (Bioimaging, Biosensing and Biobanking) within the health sector.
The coordinator of DIGI-B-CUBE project, Oslo Cancer Cluster (OCC), co-organised the last DIGI-B-CUBE sectoral workshop on 12-13 November 2019. The workshop was held as conjunction with EHiN 2019 conference, and aimed at connecting, educating and influencing health IT leaders across academia, industry, clusters and policymakers. secpho joined the workshop with 2 startups of our network: our member AOTECH and our friends Up-Devices. These startups were able to travel to Oslo thanks to the DIGI-B-CUBE travel vouchers.
The first day of the workshop was comprised of presentations from academia and industry followed by discussion on digital innovation challenges & barriers across the value chains. In the afternoon session, the participants took part through the Digital Transformation Services journey facilitated by ‘DigitalNorway‘. Second day of the workshop focused more on networking and matchmaking of the organisations targeting the Horizon 2020 funding, especially the cluster facilitated projects.
Dr. Gupta Udatha, coordinator of the DIGI-B-CUBE project explained the aims of the project towards creating cross-border and cross-sectoral ecosystem that combines digital innovations from the IT sector with the health sector, in lockstep with the Smart Specialisation Strategies. He also presented information on the funding available to the SMEs via the equity-free voucher scheme of the project. Other prominent speakers included Anna Sobczak, Policy Officer for clusters & emerging industries at the European Commission. She presented about “Cluster facilitated projects for new industrial value chains – Policy background and expected results”. Furthermore, a presentation on “Personalized Diagnostic in the Era of nanotechnology, AI and Cloud” was presented by Deborah Zanforlin, CEO & Co-founder of ConquerX. She also presented the cross-sectoral innovations that are helping them to achieve Poly-Analyte Cancer Test (PACT).
Representatives from approximately 20 SMEs (from various sectors) and other organisations (including intermediaries) participated in the discussion about the challenges and needs of the medical diagnostics value-chain. Based on the feedback that the project team received from all sectoral workshops, the DIGI-B-CUBE open call will be defined for funding the SMEs.
In continuation to the workshop, a matchmaking session was held. The matchmaking session moderated by the Oslo Cancer Cluster (OCC) focused on creating draft concepts and consortia for the four upcoming calls with deadlines for proposal submissions during April 2020. The participants of the DIGI-B-CUBE sectoral workshop were also provided with an opportunity to display their respective promotional materials at the Expo area of EHiN conference. This enabled them to network as well with other participants.
It is relevant to mention that the project has now moved into the cross-sectoral workshops phase. Out of the two foreseen, the first one was organized on December 4th in Badalona, Spain, by secpho. The second cross-sectoral workshop is scheduled for January 22nd. It will be organised by the DIGI-B-CUBE partner INFOPOLE in Charleroi, Belgium. Interested SMEs can access this link to find out more and register for the upcoming workshop.
Following the sectoral workshop, the project organised its 2nd physical consortium meeting on November 14, 2019. The meeting was hosted by the Oslo Cancer Cluster (OCC), the project coordinating institution based in Oslo, Norway.
Representatives from all partner organisations attended the consortium meeting. The meeting aimed to review the work carried out since project inception, to understand the status of the activities ongoing, and to manage planning of those foreseen in the upcoming months. The activity plan including the timeline of deliverables and milestones of the project was reviewed, reiterating the responsibilities for the tasks led under different Work Packages. Emphasis was laid on prioritising tasks in accordance with the project timeline. Launching of the open call was discussed in detail to clearly indicate the role of each partner and the deadlines expected to be met. The meeting agenda had a dedicated slot for each Work Package to be discussed in detail. The responsible partners led the discussions while simultaneously agreeing the related next steps.
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