NCC Turkey presented White Paper – SME HPC Maturity Model

NCC Montenegro representatives attended CASTIEL supported, presentation of White Paper “Development of a Maturity Assessment Tool to Improve SME HPC Capabilities” for EuroCC2 industry working group. Dr Özlem Sarı, NCC Turkey, presented industrial users acquisition process and development of HPC Maturity Assessment Tool to improve SME HPC capabilities.

During the presentation, Proof of Concept study, Course of Action, GAP analyses, as well as methodological approach and validation process were duly elaborated. In addition, there was a vibrant discussion on challenges faced and experiences were shared regarding SME collaboration and industry interaction, especially regarding assessment results/HPC maturity levels, identifying HPC-suitable problems and business benefits of HPC integration.

Association of Montenegrin Managers recognizes the importance of AI

Association of Montenegrin Managers constituted a the Committee for the AI applications and advanced technologies. In accordance with the decision of the Presidency of AMM, Ivan Šoć, the founder of Five Group, was appointed as the Chairman of the Board. Dražen Raičković, executive director of the company Business Universal Media, will be the deputy president, and Katarina Savković will be the secretary of the Board. In addition to the aforementioned, representatives of business, science and the media also joined the Board: Pavel Chagoiko – General manager – EPAM Systems, Tomo Popović – associate professor – University of Donja Gorica, Stevan Šandi – research associate – University of Donja Gorica, Slavko Kovačević – teaching associate – Faculty of Electrical Engineering (University of Montenegro), Filip Ivanović – Director of Digital – TV Vijesti. Find more info about the AMM at the following link.

Association of Montenegrin Managerers formed the Committe for AI applications (photo: AMM)

The AMM recognizes the increasing importance of artificial intelligence and other advanced technologies, especially in the field of business application, but also open questions and insufficient regulation concerning security, privacy and other aspects. The AMM made a decision to include artificial intelligence in its Statute and the constitution of this committee is just beginning.

AMM Commitee for AI applications and advanced technologies (photo AMM)

For EuroCC Montenegro, this an important development and an opportunity to engage the industry and business executives to promote the use of HPC and provide support in capacity building in HPC and AI.

The AMM organized the Kick-off meeting on 20.07.2023. (photo: AMM)

NCC Montenegro participated at “Central European NCCs Workgroup Meeting”

Representatives of NCC Montenegro participated (online) in the “Central European NCCs Workgroup Meeting” organized within the scope of ASHPC23 – Austrian-Slovenian HPC Meeting 2023 (June 13–15, 2023) at the Institute of Information Science in Maribor (IZUM), to actively discuss, exchange experiences and follow up-to-date EuroCC2 and NCCs’ initiatives. Agenda of the NCCs’ meeting covered topics:

  • NCCs industry’ approach (SMEs engagement, service portfolio, infrastructure access, expected outcomes etc.),
  • EuroCC2 training activities (training formats, joint training events, regional collaboration, collaboration with CoEs and EDIHs, targeting SME audience etc.)
  • NCCs communication and disseminations tools (networking events organization, effective communication channels, choosing subjects & speakers, attracting industry stakeholders etc.)

NCC Austria presented their SMEs/Start-ups boosting initiative “EuroCC Supercomputing accelerator” and training initiative on webinar series assuming NCCs and CoEs shared contribution and collaboration. NCC Slovenia presented “SLING Open Doors Days”, their success story on successfully organized community and networking event.

AIMHiGH project featured in Success Story booklet by EUROCC

EuroCC has published their first booklet edition of Success Stories for 2023! The booklet contains a summary of successful experiments that have been conducted within the EuroCC projects with some of them using EuroHPC Joint Undertaking supercomputers Each success story includes its challenges, solutions, business impacts and benefits. Discover more on the newly published booklet! Project AIMHiGH, a HPC/AI use case for computer vision solutions in agri-food sector, was featured in this first bulletin. The booklet is available at the following link.

Project AIMHIGH featured in the Success Story bulletin
Click on image to open the report

EUROCC2 project successfully presented at EDCON Conference 2023

Montenegro welcomed one of the biggest gatherings in the cryptocurrency world and blockchain technologies – EDCON (Community Ethereum Development Conference) bringing founders, developers, researchers, industry leaders, investors and innovators together to discuss the recent developments, emerging trends and overall potential of Etherium-based solutions, blockchain ecosystem, decentralised technologies and digital economy.

During a five-day event, co-organised by UDG, (https://www.edcon.io) visitors from all over the world had an opportunity to listen inspirational speakers, including Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, to attend panel discussion, interactive workshops and exhibition stands, as well as to experience multiple networking and collaboration opportunities.

NCC team members effectively showcased the EUROCC2 project at the UDG exhibition booth, and also highlighted its significance in the opening speech at the EDCON conference. Multiple high-tech enthusiasts, entrepreneurs and innovative companies’ representatives had an opportunity to understand better how NCC Montenegro, powered by of EUROCC2, brings innovative supercomputing technologies and applications to Montenegro. Visitors were captivated by HPC+ benefits and opportunities, briefly introduced to EuroCC2 project and express further interest in MNE success stories and industry onboarding process.

EuroCC2 gearing up – Meeting with CoE BioExcel

Representatives of NCC Montenegro and NCC Macedonia had a joint introductory meeting organized by – Centre of Excellence for Computational Biomolecular Research from Sweden, on 18th of May 2023. BioExcel has been developing/using state-of-computational and software tools and modelling techniques since 2015, to address some of the biggest scientific challenges in the area of bimolecular research.

Research in the BioExcel focuses on structural and functional studies of the main building blocks of living organisms – proteins, DNA, membranes, solvents and small molecules such as drug components. BioExcel CoE’s activities support researcher work in core disciplines in the computational sciences such as: Integrative structural biology, Biomarkers design, Nanotechnology and materials science, Personalized medicine, Physiology, Neuroinformatics, Multi-scale QM/MM modelling.

BioExcel Ambassadors’ Program was also presented, as an attractive opportunity for the NCCs and local academic or government institutions, working in the field of computational bimolecular modelling and simulations and duly interested in collaborative research, trainings and outreach activities.

In the scope of elaborated CoE-NCC cooperation and joint efforts on HPC use in the respective domains, NCC Montenegro shortly presented its current activities and potentially interested partners in the area of bimolecular research. BioExcel emphasized its widely acknowledged software tools and training events, including its upcoming, annual flagship BioExcel Summer School (September 2023, Sardinia, Italy), which provides a comprehensive combination of lectures and tutorial sessions on bimolecular modelling and simulations, using modern applications and tools including GROMACS, HADDOCK, PMX. Registration and information: https://bioexcel.eu/events/bioexcel-summer-school-on-biomolecular-simulations-2023/

EUROCC at EEN WB++ Networking Event

University of Donja Gorica took part in the Enterprise Europe Network workshop called WB++ Networking Event. The topic of the event was “Digitalization in Agri-Food. The main participants were teams and SMEs active in the field of IT from the region as presenters, and the target audience was interest groups including public entities, companies, research groups, individuals, etc. UDG presented the EUROCC and EUROCC2 projects and discussed success stories and efforts to support digitalisation and the use of HPC/AI in agri-food sector.

WB++ Networking Event (Western Balkans) by EEN
T. Popovic presented several project implemented at UDG relevant to Agri-food sector

The WB++ event is a joint initiative of partners from the countries of the Western Balkans (+Slovenia +Croatia) with the aim of connecting companies and strengthening partnerships and connections in the region. There was over 40 attendees at the networking event. The Enterprise Europe Network consists of almost 600 partner organizations and institutions, provides excellent contacts and links in 54 countries and connects over 3,000 experts in different fields at the local and international level. Through the FINNO platform, free consulting services are offered for sources of financing for innovation, business internationalization and business growth.

We discussed resutls of EuroCC and plans for EuroCC2 (focus on PoC)
There was around 50 attendees at the event