Seventh meeting of the Working Group on Digital Innovation Hubs

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Seventh meeting of the Working Group on Digital Innovation Hubs (01.07.2019, Brussels)

What role will Digital Innovation Hubs play in the Digital Europe Programme? How will funding work? How can collaboration between hubs be fostered any further? These issues will be discussed in the next meeting of the Working Group on Digital Innovation Hubs.

The European Commission has proposed the creation of the first ever Digital Europe programme, which would invest €9.2 billion to align the next long-term EU budget 2021-2027 with increasing digital challenges.

Digital Innovation Hubs will play an important role in this programme to stimulate in particular the uptake of Artificial Intelligence, HPC and Cybersecurity by all industry and public sector organisations in Europe.

Digital Innovation Hubs will have both a local and European functioning, and therefore Member States will be expected to co-invest and participate in selection process of DIHs funded under Digital Europe.

This new meeting of the Working Group on DIHs will further enhance DIH collaboration and strengthen the European DIH network. The meeting will focus on the role and funding of hubs within Digital Europe, aiming to:

  • Gather feedback from stakeholders on the plans for future funding of DIHs under the next Multi-Annual Financial Framework, in particular the Digital Europe Programme
  • Discuss what needs to be done in preparation for the new programme, with a special focus on fostering collaboration between DIHs

The meeting will be co-organised with the DIHNET Coordination and Support Action that also manages the newly launched DIHNET community platform for DIHs.

 

LITHUANIAN DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY LEADERS HAVE COMBINED FORCES FOR A COMMON GOAL

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Technology leaders unite forces!

Country progress and prosperity is increasingly determined by digitization in business and the public sector. So far, Lithuania lags behind the most digitally advanced EU countries by the scope of introducing robotics, databases, artificial intelligence, and cyber security. In Lithuania, as little as every tenth company has digitized its processes. This is a reason why labor productivity in Lithuania is more than twice lower compared to the EU countries that are digitization leaders. This gap continues growing fast due to insufficient technology use.

 

16 Lithuanian organizations decided to unite and change this situation. They include Lithuanian universities, Digital Technology Centres (DTCs), associations uniting industrial and information technology companies, and private sector leaders in digital technologies. Experienced in digitization projects, they all have established the European Digital Innovation Hub (EDIH) of Central and Western Lithuania.

 

Such centres are being set up across Europe and networked to strengthen the competitiveness of countries and Europe as a whole. EDIH will aim to help companies transition into the next generation of the digital economy age, where competitiveness depends on the manufacturing digitization level, namely to what extent automation, robotization, services and processes are digitized.

 

EDIH will operate as a one-stop-shop and provide innovation support and advisory services to businesses and public authorities.

 

EDIH plans to assist more 500 companies in the Central and Western Lithuania, so that more than 1,000 processes will be digitized, and more than 5,000 staff will be trained to use digital technologies at work. Before investing, companies will be able to test the digital technologies they intend to procure and install, and evaluate their performance.

 

EDIH consists of 16 organizations operating throughout Lithuania and representing various areas of competence and experience.

 

Research and study establishments:

  • Kaunas University of Technology
  • ISM University of Management and Economics
  • Mykolas Romeris University
  • Lithuanian Cybercrime Centre of Excellence for Training, Research and Education L3CE
  • Klaipėda University
  • Lithuanian University of Health Sciences

 

Associations and businesses:

  • Association INFOBALT
  • Lithuanian Engineering Industry Association LINPRA
  • Technology Centre Intechcentras
  • Uosto Verslo Centras, UAB
  • Centre of Excellence Baltic Technology Park, VSI
  • Vilnius Industry and Business Association
  • Pažangios Inovacijos, UAB
  • Columbus Lietuva, UAB
  • NRD CS, UAB
  • Blue Bridge Code, UAB

 

On 28 September 2020, the 12 partners of the consortium submitted an application to MITA (the Agency for Science, Innovation and Technology) aiming to receive EU funding for EDIH activities. EDIH activities are administered by EDIH Coordinator, Kaunas University of Technology.

Invitation | Industrial challenges to become digital manufacturer: Experiences of EU companies

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EU project ManuLearn partner Intechcentras invites you to participate in an international networking event for manufacturing companies with the title “Industrial challenges to become digital manufacturer: Experiences of EU companies”, which will take place online on 29 September 11:00–13:00 CEST time.

The purpose of the event is to share visions, discuss and co-create solutions on how to approach future manufacturing challenges. It addresses industrial companies that are considering the adoption of new technologies of digitalization or they have started such digitalization process to face present and future manufacturing challenges.

The first part of the event will consist of three presentations of companies that already have gone through the digitalization process. They will focus on specific areas or specific cases, point out barriers and good practices / business opportunities that they handled in their companies.

After the key-note session every participating company will be invited to choose one of the three parallel dialogue sessions according to their areas of interest / technologies. Participants in the parallel meetings will have the chance to discuss the most relevant challenges and nowadays concerns in smaller groups with other companies.

Registration
If you are interested, register HERE before 25 September and you will receive a link to participate online a few days prior to the event.

For more information
Please contact: marius.kvedaravicius@intechcentras.lt

Preliminary AGENDA

11:00-11:15 Introduction to the event (EIT Manufacturing)
11:15-12:00 Keynote presentation panel: Practical experiences of companies in Digitalization:
• Digitalization I: Czech Republic company case (15 min)
• Digitalization II: Lithuanian company case (15 min)
• Additive Manufacturing: Spanish company case (15 min)
12:00-12:30 Parallel Dialogue Sessions in small groups (split by areas of interest/ technologies)
• Which are our most relevant challenges on Digitalization?
• How are we facing such challenges? What are the drivers and barriers?
12:30-13:00 Conclusions in Plenary

You are welcome to join!

*ManuLearn project is funded by EIT-Manufacturing EU initiative.

Near Vilnius – new Advanced Manufacturing Digital Innovation Center

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On Vilnius Molėtai road, it is planned to build a new Advanced Manufacturing Digital Innovation Center (AM DIH / Center). The aim and purpose of this, like other similar centers to be set up across Europe, is to encourage industry and other public organizations to invest in digital innovation by providing them with up-to-date information, expertise, access to infrastructure and technology, and digital innovation testing of their products. processes or business models.

In this Center will operate various 200-300 sq. m. manufacturing laboratories such as electrical engineering and automation, additive manufacturing, environmental control, machining, robotics and integrated automation systems, quality control and others. The services such as automation, robotics, 3D prototyping, design and testing, digitalization consulting and many other services related to digitalization will be provided. According to AM DIH coordinator, technology center Intechcentras director Audrius Jasėnas, it will be one of the most modern research, experimental development and innovation centers in Lithuania.

All Lithuanian manufacturing companies that develop or implement digital technologies or products will be invited to use the Centre’s laboratory infrastructure, innovation support and consulting services. The Center will be fundamentally different from clusters or open access centers because it will allow all companies in the sector to apply directly to benefit from the services provided and to recover up to 50% using governmental de minimis funding for the purchase or implementation of digital services.

 

The project of the Advanced Manufacturing Digital Innovation Center will be partially financed under the measure “Digital Innovation Centers” by the Ministry of Economy and Innovation of the Republic of Lithuania, and LINPRA members, innovation group partners:  UAB BaltLed, UAB Aedilis, UAB Elinta, UAB Proftools, UAB Vakarų centrinė laboratorija.

The purpose of this 9.7 million € joint investment of business and the state is to enable AM DIH to provide a full range of services to manufacturing companies (One Stop Shop). It is planned that during the project period more than 200 Lithuanian companies and organizations will use technological infrastructure, innovation consulting and support services provided by AM DIH. The provision of services is not defined only by the potential of the Lithuanian market, it is expected that the circle of customers should grow not only in Lithuania, but also abroad.

One of the partners of the innovation group of this project, the managing director of UAB Elinta group dr. Vytautas Jokužis states that such a center will help the entire Lithuanian industry to digitize much faster: “Currently, companies which are developing prototypes of new products face insurmountable obstacles that prevent the rapid and good production of a prototype of a product or digital-robotic system. Serial production companies are very reluctant to take unit orders, and if they do, their production is very expensive, takes several weeks, and usually not the best quality product is obtained. In order to accelerate the development of new products, such a center with a modern integrated R&D infrastructure for digital technology development is vital. ”

Mindaugas Jasiulevičius, the director of UAB BaltLed, also agrees with him: “Companies that develop innovative solutions and products find it increasingly difficult to keep up with large market players who have already accumulated such infrastructure over many years. Rapid product development is essential to remain competitive not only in the workforce but also in the innovations it creates. The development, testing, improvement and testing of new digital solutions in such a center will be significantly faster due to the infrastructure at a center and the joint accumulation of product development competencies”.