Could you start by introducing yourself and your EDIH, highlighting its main area of expertise and how it is helping clients to overcome their digital challenges?
My name is Eva Haas and I am Chief Financial Officer at the Institute of Communications Technologies and Embedded Systems at RWTH Aachen university.
Our EDIH has got expertise in artificial intelligence, high-performance computing, and digital skills. In our work with the public sector especially, we complement these areas with innovation support and sustainability. We help our partners overcome digital challenges by strongly believing in our expertise as we are well-experienced in networking within our specific expert communities. We believe that communication and understanding are very important – simply listening to the SMEs and to what their issue is, what they are facing, what their challenges are, and then figuring out a solution.
You are here in Brussels for the first EDIH Network Summit. What are your expectations for the event?
First and foremost, our hope is to meet people and EDIHs from other countries and to kickstart collaborations, particularly with Eastern European countries. We are seeking partnerships with EDIHs with similar expertise or complementary aspects so that we can really come together and brainstorm, and establish an exchange of ideas on a longer-term basis. What we also want to see is how other EDIHs solve issues and what we can learn from each other. The Summit has brought together all the EDIHs in Europe. It is also important for us to take note of other EDIHs’ experiences with bookings, costing, and pricing when it comes to servicing.
How do you think that being a member of the EDIH Network impacts the performance of your EDIH? In what ways does the EDIH Network add value to your operations?
I think that this is closely related to my answer to the previous question because for me the real impact of this network is that it gives its members the opportunity to brainstorm collectively. In this way, you grow together, you gain access to a great variety of ideas on how to collaborate. Thanks to such conversations, we are often able to identify issues that we had not yet considered but others had already encountered, and vice versa. This is one of the greatest benefits that you can experience as an EDIH Network member. In the long run, it’s how you grow; these are the questions and answers that will improve your services, facilitate new ideas, to service SMEs and offer hands-on help.
Could you share a success story in which one of your clients made significant progress in their digitalisation goals thanks to your EDIH?
Yes, we do have a success story. It is at a preliminary stage because as you can imagine after only 5 months in operation we are still in our ramp-up phase, getting our services and formal structures defined, and the consortium connected. We are working to build up a successful, clear, comprehensive pitch deck. Our Institute is currently in close collaboration with a regional SME active in the Internet of Things that develops sensors to monitor cold chains. What we are providing them with is a concept of neuromorphic computing that offers a lot more than simply looking at the temperatures to guarantee a cold chain. What we are currently planning together with the client an interactive workshop to really guide them through this new technology, to give them support and explain how it can be implemented in their process. This is likely to become a workshop series to allow us to really direct them along the whole process until they are fully ready to understand the procedure and its benefits. Thanks to the new technology, they can safeguard a lot more aspects of the cold chain, with more parameters, and at the same time save energy. Energy consumption will be significantly lower compared to their current consumption using their own sensors. I think for at least the next year and a half, our collaboration with this SME will serve as a good example of what we can do in terms of the services and ideas that we offer. We would really look forward to seeing this kind of process work with other clients and different goods in the long run.
Have you had the opportunity already to collaborate with any other EDIH?
Yes. One of our collaborations was discussed in a session this morning, it was presented by Thibaut van Rooden from EDIH WalHub in Liège (Belgium). Our proximity to Belgium makes this collaboration especially beneficial. We also have an ongoing collaboration for over a year now with the EDIH in Prague, represented by Dr Teresa Samanova. What we are seeking and striving for is to find ideas for joint projects in research and discover funding opportunities for collaborations. We are doing this together, always with a view to both their and our SMEs. The combination of providing networking services and securing support for our SMEs is at the core of what the network does in real life. We do not simply attend events to network on some vague idea; we take concrete actions to obtain real results.
Great! Lastly, which message or advice would you like to share with fellow participants at the Summit to motivate them to continue working together to advance the EDIH Network?
What I like to say is “go servicing by networking”. To me that doesn’t simply mean that you do some servicing, and that you do that by networking. It means that you must strive for the whole package, as we have heard discussed during the Summit in the last few days. It’s important that we understand and learn from each other and build trust. It is not the case that once you meet somebody, you immediately just start communicating or discussing ideas. A foundation of trust needs to be in place. So, servicing by networking, in my opinion, is something that happens in a community, through clear lines of communication based on long-term experience. This cooperation sets the scene for inspiration. Hands-on workshops, networking, guidance, and assistance are all components that help build these foundations. And the more you feel inspired, the more likely you are to come up with ideas and solutions.
Details
- Publication date
- 11 August 2023