Interview published

Interview:

Could you introduce yourself and your EDIH and show where the main focus is and how it will assist customers in dealing with their digital challenges?

My Name is Eva Haas and I am the Chief Financial Officer at the Institute of Communications Technologies and Embedded Systems at the RWTH Aachen.

Our EDIH has Expertise in the areas of artificial intelligence, High Performance Computing and digital skills. Especially in our work with the public sector, we complement these areas, by promoting innovation and sustainability. We help our partners overcome digital challenges, and we firmly believe knowledge of our trade, because we have communities and a lot of experience with networking within our specific Subject. We believe that communication and understanding are very important – just the SMEs listen, what's your Problem what you are facing, what their challenges are, and then find a solution.

You are here in Brussels for the first EDIH network summit. What are your expectations for this event?

First and foremost, we hope to meet people and EDIHs from other countries and co-operation, especially with Eastern European countries, to initiate. We are looking for partnerships with EDIHs with a similar subject or complementary aspects, so that we can really come together and have a Brainstorming session and a longer-term exchange of ideas carry out.

We also want to see how other EDIHs solve problems and what we can learn from each other. The summit has brought together all the EDIHs in Europe. For us, it is also important to the experience of other EDIHs with bookings, cost calculations and pricing in relation to the Service note.

How does your opinion, membership of the EDIH network on the performance of your EDIH? How is the EDIH network value to your business?

I think that this is closely related to my answer to the previous question, because for me the real effect of this network is that it gives its members the opportunity to brainstorm together brain. In this way, you grow together, and get access to a variety of ideas on how you can work together. Thanks to such conversations, we are often able to identify problems, to which we have not yet thought of, but others are already met, and Vice versa.

This is one of the biggest advantages you can experience as a member of the EDIH network. In the long term, it grows so; it is the questions and answers to improve your services are, new ideas, SMEs serve and practical help.

You can tell a success story that one of your customers thanks to their EDIH considerable progress in digitalisation objectives has made?

Yes, we have a success story. It is in a preliminary stage, because as you can imagine, we are in the lead after just five months, is still in the start-up phase, in which we define our services and formal structures, and the consortium together. We are working to create a successful, clear and comprehensive Pitch Deck.

Our Institute is currently working closely with a regional SMEs, which is in the Internet of things and Sensors for the Monitoring of the cold chain is developed. We provide you with a concept of neuromorphic computing offers much more than just the Monitoring of temperatures, to ensure the cold chain. Currently, we are planning together with the customer, an interactive Workshop to guide him through this new technology, to support him and to explain to him how they can be implemented in its process.

This will likely be a series of workshops that allows us to run really through the whole process, until you have understood the process and its advantages completely. Thanks to the new technology, you can save a lot more aspects of the cold chain with more parameters and at the same time save energy. The energy consumption will be compared to the current consumption with their own Sensors is significantly lower.

I think that our cooperation with that SMEs will at least serve in the next one and a half years as a good example of what we can do in terms of our services, and ideas. We would really appreciate, when this kind of process would, in the long term also work with other customers and other Goods.

You have already had the opportunity to work with other EDIH to cooperate?

Yes. One of our cooperation was discussed today in the Morning in a meeting, it was presented by Thibaut van Rooden of EDIH WalHub in liège (Belgium). Our proximity to Belgium makes this collaboration particularly advantageous. Also with the EDIH in Prague, represented by Dr. Teresa Samanova, we are working together for over a year. We are looking for, and strive to find ideas for joint research projects and to explore funding opportunities for cooperation.

We do this together, always with a view to their and our SMEs. The combination of the provision of connectivity services, and the position of the support for our SME is the core of what the network is doing in real life. We are not just events, to connect us with some vague idea, but we will take concrete measures in order to achieve real results.

Great! What is the message or what advice would you give to the other participants in the summit on the way to motivate them to continue working together and the EDIH network forward?

What I like to say, is: "Go into the services through networking". For me, that means not only providing a few services and Networking does. It means that you must strive to have the total package, as we have heard in the last few days at the summit. It is important that we understand each other, learn from each other and build trust. It is not so, that, as soon as you meet someone, communicate immediately starts to, or to discuss ideas.

It is a basis of trust must be present. In my opinion the service is through networking is something that happens in a community, through clear lines of communication on the basis of years of experience. This collaboration creates the prerequisites for Inspiration. Hands-on Workshops, Networking, consulting and support, are all components that contribute to the creation of these basics. And the more you will feel inspired, the more likely it is that you get ideas and solutions.