Hack for a cause – AI for Safer Drug Prescriptions

We’re excited to announce a hackathon organized by our partners Cyprus Institute (CyI) and NCC Cyprus!

The “Hack for a cause” hackathon is organized by the Cyprus Institute (CyI) in collaboration with the Anticancer Society Cyprus and focuses on leveraging Artificial Intelligence (AI) to improve the drug prescription process for hospitalized cancer patients, particularly addressing the complexities of polypharmacy. The aim is to develop an AI tool that utilizes patients’ treatment charts—documents indicating prescribed medications, dosages, frequencies, routes, allergies, and comorbidities—along with publicly available medicine descriptions to issue high-level alerts to doctors during the prescription process. These alerts will be triggered if the tool identifies drug interactions, contraindications with the patient’s medical record, or potential overdoses.

The event will be conducted in a hybrid format, allowing for both online and onsite participation from national and international attendees.

Registration for this event is open until Thursday, October 3rd 12:00pm, 2024.

More info : https://eurocc.cyi.ac.cy/hack-for-a-cause/

New academic paper on Montenegro’s HPC ecosystem development

A new academic paper ‘Sizing HPC Opportunities in Montenegro: Market Insights, Best Practices and Use Cases’ has been published in the scientific journal “Entrepreneurial Economy“.

The paper highlights the pivotal role of HPC in addressing critical societal, scientific, and industrial challenges, and explores its growing impact on businesses through data-driven decision-making, workflow optimization or innovative product design. The study underscores the importance of HPC infrastructure, Cloud services, and AI applications in driving digital transformation and enhancing the industry competitiveness of SMEs.
The research also identifies key challenges in Montenegro including a shortage of HPC expertise, low demand for critical HPC performance, and certain concerns related to data security and IPR. Despite these challenges, market research revealed HPC opportunities related to high Cloud adoption, innovative product development and favourable business prospects. The paper also describe activities of the HPC National Competence Centre Montenegro, established through the EuroCC project, related to established HPC and AI related academic programs and training portfolio, and productive industry collaborations, demonstrated through successful use cases in smart agriculture, precise weather forecasting, and FinTech.

By harnessing both national expertise and international supercomputing resources, the NCC Montenegro has effectively integrated HPC technologies into research and business practices, driving technology innovations and smart growth.

NCC Montenegro hosts Supercomputing Workshops for new UDG students

As a part of the orientation week for new students, the EuroCC National Competence Centre Montenegro has organized a Supercomputing Workshop aimed at introducing incoming university students to the exciting world of high-performance computing (HPC).

The workshop featured interactive sessions where students could get insights into cutting-edge technologies used in supercomputing, such as parallel processing, intelligent algorithms, and data analytics. Experts from the NCC guided the participants through the technical fundamentals of HPC systems, demonstrated real-world applications related to Big Data processing and advanced AI modelling, but also provided examples of academic study cases and industry use cases, including Montenegro’s success stories.

The aim of the workshop was also to provide brief overview on HPC/AI related academic programs, training portfolio and NCC activities, to show how students can leverage supercomputing resources for academic projects and scientific research, or even for startup ideas and potential industry collaboration.

By exposing new students to the potential of supercomputing early in their academic journey, the NCC aims to support students’ development in high-demand, tech-driven carriers, and to foster community of innovative thinkers prepared to tackle complex and critical challenges of the modern world.

Industry collaboration with Inovativa Doo

This collaboration initiated by Inovativa, a web programming start up interested in AI powered development, focuses on leveraging Generative AI (GenAI) and different LLMs to revolutionize web design by automating key elements such as landing page creation, dynamic content generation, responsive design, and user interface optimization.

The research aims to evaluate the effectiveness of both commercial and open-source AI tools, comparing their capabilities and performance across various scales. Additionally, the project explores the potential for direct in-browser AI implementations, offering a more seamless and accessible approach to web development. By harnessing the power of AI and HPC, the project aspires to democratize advanced web development techniques, making them accessible to a wider audience of developers and businesses, and fostering a new era of AI-human collaboration in digital content creation.

As a collaborative effort between academic institutions and industry partners, this initiative benefits from the technical expertise of the Faculty for Information Systems and Technology from the University of Donja Gorica (FIST/UDG), which leads the AI and machine learning analysis. Meanwhile, practical testing, implementation, and economic evaluation are driven by industry specialists. High Performance Computing (HPC) plays a crucial role in managing the computational demands of evaluating advanced AI models.This collaboration highlights the integration of AI research with real-world application, aiming to enhance efficiency and innovation in web development practices.

AIFUSION – Artificial intelligence in agriculture, medicine and energy

The University of Donja Gorica, with the support of the Innovation Fund of Montenegro, as part of the program for the organization of education in the areas of smart specialization of Montenegro, organizes a three-month training called “AIFUSION – Artificial intelligence in agriculture, medicine and energy.” The course will be held in the period from the end of September (September 21) to the end of December (December 21) 2024.

The education program is divided into 5 modules: Introduction to artificial intelligence, Computer vision, Natural language processing, Artificial intelligence and S3 in practice and Ethics and responsible use of artificial intelligence and work on the final project.

Apart from the fact that the participants will acquire enough knowledge and skills needed for further research in this very current field, they will have the opportunity to expand their network of acquaintances and meet young people with similar interests.

A detailed agenda is available at link.

To apply, you need to fill out the Google form found at the link https://forms.gle/f8Pc8ozu9U3tHKY98. Applications last until September 20 (11:59 p.m.), and the course is scheduled to start on September 21.

Image(s) from previous workshops

New model developed in the field of HPC technologies through the collaboration of DigitalSmart and NCC Montenegro

In collaboration with the National Competence Center Montenegro (NCC Montenegro), the University of Donja Gorica (UDG), and the University of Montenegro (UCG), the company DigitalSmart has successfully started the development of a new model utilizing advanced High Performance Computing (HPC) technologies. This partnership represents an important step towards applying HPC resources to solve complex problems and enhancing academic and industrial processes in Montenegro.

The new model is designed to optimize data processing, providing faster and more efficient solutions for research and development in the field of generative artificial intelligence. The use of HPC technologies in this context enables greater scalability and precision in the analysis and processing of large datasets.

The experiment has been successfully submitted through the Fortissimo call, paving the way for further validation and application of this model on an international level.

Industry Collaboration with Bearhost, an SME from Bijelo Polje

NCC Montenegro continues the engagement of local companies to promote the use of HPC and provide support for its practical applications. Company Bearhost from Bijelo Polje is working on a medical platform that will utilise AI for better communication between patients and medical providers. Their idea is to create the platform that integrates seamlessly with existing clinic management systems, supporting real-time appointment scheduling and comprehensive resource management.

The use of HPC ensures that the platform can process large volumes of patient data quickly and efficiently, thus optimizing clinic operations. This approach significantly reduces operational delays and allows for better patient data management, contributing to enhanced clinical outcomes. Bearhost, in collaboration with the Competence Center for HPC, seeks to address pressing healthcare challenges by utilizing AI to optimize patient-doctor interactions. The AI system, powered by HPC resources, is designed to analyze vast amounts of patient data in real-time, providing insights that help match patients with the most suitable healthcare professionals based on their symptoms and needs. By streamlining these interactions, the platform enhances timely medical interventions and improves overall patient care.

The collaboration with the UDG and NCC Montenegro further enriches this initiative by fostering academic research and development. The university’s role in this partnership involves conducting research on AI models and their practical application in medicine, ensuring that the solutions developed are grounded in scientific rigor and are continuously improved through testing and validation. The interdisciplinary exchange between the university and industry partners contributes to the platform’s continuous evolution.