Successful realization of the IEEE IT2024 Conference

XXVIII international scientific and professional conference “Information technologies” was held from February 21 to 24, 2024 traditionally in Žabljak, organized by: University of Montenegro – Faculty of Electrical Engineering, University of Donja Gorica – Faculty of Information Systems and Technologies, IT Society Crna Gora, University of Belgrade – Faculty of Organizational Sciences, IEEE Association and IEEE Section for Serbia and Montenegro, with the full support of the company Čikom from Podgorica. Presentations of author’s works and sessions were realized live in the hotel “Gorske oči”, hotel “Žabljak”, but also online. The conference gathered around 200 national and international participants. Link to conference website: https://www.it.ac.me/en/

Authors from 20 countries took part in the conference: Montenegro, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Slovenia, Hungary, Romania, Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Spain, Slovakia, Ukraine, Estonia, the United Kingdom, Turkey, Egypt, Jordan, Indonesia and the Philippines. The number of submitted author’s works was 101, of which 67 were accepted and presented, which were reviewed and selected on the basis of the complete work. Topics from various fields are covered such as: image and audio signal processing, acyclic graphs, blockchain technology, information security, standardization, application of artificial intelligence in various fields, management of unmanned vessels, virtual trade and knowledge transfer.\

Another successful realization of IEEE IT2024 Conference

A special session was dedicated to the presentations of the EuroCC2 project – National Competence Centers for HPC: https://eurocc.udg.edu.me/, the presentation of the Montenegrin Academic Digital Innovation Hub, supported by the DigNEST project : https://dignest.me/#/ , then TRACEWINDU: https://www.tracewindu.eu/, FoodHUB – Center of excellence for digitization of risk assessment in the field of food safety and precise certification of the authenticity of pre-harvested products: https://foodhub .udg.edu.me/, HPC4S3ME: https://hpc4s3me.udg.edu.me/, AI-AGE: https://ai-age.udg.edu.me/, STECCI: https://steccihorizoneu. com/, FishEUTrust: https://fisheutrust.org/, Solar Katun: https://digitalsmart.me/innovation-fund-of-montenegro-solar-katun-project/, Enav: https://enav.ucg. ac.me and COMMECT: https://www.horizoneurope-commect.eu/ . Representatives of Fleka, Čikom and FiveG Group participated in the training.

As part of the XXVIII scientific-professional conference, those present had the opportunity to participate in workshops, panels and trainings in the field of artificial intelligence, but also to hear the activities carried out by national competence centers in the field of high-performance computing from Cyprus, Slovenia, the Netherlands, Montenegro, Turkey , North Macedonia, Romania, participants in the EuroCC2 project. The project supports the development of innovative solutions by targeted participants in the private and public sector by providing support to interested end users in the use of HPC/HPDA/AI. Activities and innovative solutions based on the use of high-performance computing (HPC) and artificial intelligence (AI) for applications in industrial domains defined by the Smart Specialization Strategy (2019-2024) for Montenegro were presented.

Traditionally, the conference was successfully completed for the twenty-eighth year in a row, and it fulfilled its goal by pointing out the importance of a multidisciplinary overview of current events and the networking of a large number of university professors and associates, experts and young researchers in the field of information and communication technologies.

EuroCC Montenegro website statistics

EuroCC NCC Montenegro website had over 10,000 visitors and over 25,000 visits during the last year. The number of visits was correlated with the organization of events, publishing od blog posts and announcements on social media. The overall stats since the website launch shows over 22,000 visitors and close to 60,000 visits. This is for the period from Jan 2021.

We had over 10,000 visitors in 2023

AmCham and HPC NCC Montenegro: Supercomputing for Industry Competitiveness

The Executive Office of American Chamber of Commerce and National Competence Centre for High Performance Computing Montenegro, organized joint workshop on innovative supercomputing technologies and applications on November 17th 2023 at University of Donja Gorica.

The AmCham member companies from various industry domains were greeted by Marko Mirocevic, AmCham Executive Director and Milica Vukotic, Dean of the Faculty for Information Systems and Technologies, emphasizing the importance digital acceleration and EuroCC2/Digital Europe project opportunities for enhancing industry innovations and competitiveness.

Representative of NCC Montenegro for industry cooperation, Sanja Nikolic introduced technical aspects and commercial applications of HPC systems, underlining transformative and innovative potential for the industry driven by integration of computational power (HPC/HPDA) and intelligent algorithms (AI/ML/DL). She also elaborated on EuroHPC supercomputing resources and access opportunities, as well as on possibilities for MNE companies to assess their HPC/AI readiness through HPC4SME self-evaluation tool (https://eurocc.udg.edu.me/hpc4sme-assessment-tool).

Representative of NCC Montenegro for service development, Luka Filipovic, presented new AI Master program and training courses, including Parallel Programing and Deep Learning, for enhancing HPC/AI skills, as well as other NCC services related to technical expertise, projects consultancy and preparation of use-cases for industry, academia and public sector. HPC/AI success stories in the areas of smart solutions for poultry farms, precise weather forecast in challenging topography of Montenegro, short-term predictive pricing in energy markets and personalized banking solutions, were presented in the constructive dialogues supported atmosphere.

AmCham members discussed challenges related to deploying AI models, issues with data availability and potential industry use-cases.

The joint event was great opportunity to promote supercomputing resources, applications and benefits available to Montenegrin companies, and to enhance industry interaction especially with the strategically aware and operationally proficient companies, to fully embrace future-proof technologies.

Media :

https://www.portalanalitika.me/clanak/amcham-i-hpc-ncc-montenegro-superracunari-za-industrijsku-konkurentnost

https://www.cdm.me/ekonomija/amcham-i-hpc-ncc-montenegro-superracunari-za-industrijsku-konkurentnost/

https://www.amcham.me/2023/11/workshop-on-hpc-ai-technologies-services-and-benefits-for-companies/

HPC opportunities for financial industry services

Representative of NCC Montenegro, Sanja Nikolic participated in the Round Table “Montenegrin Finance and Internationalization”, organized by Montenegrin Academy of Science and Art. On this event, topics related to the international competitiveness, financial opportunities and fast-paced digitalization with HPC&AI, were lively discussed with representatives of academia, banking sector, investment & trading institutions.
Mrs. Nikolic presented technical and commercial aspects of HPC systems and emphasized HPC/AI powered use cases in the financial services industry. EuroCC/EuroCC2 supercomputing opportunities and NCC Montenegro activities related to HPC/AI study programs, trainings and industry success stories were also elaborated.

Event in media :

IT2023 and EuroCC2 featured in IEEE Region 8 News

Thanks to EuroCC2 team from Montenegro, EuroCC and 27th International Scientific and Professional Conference – Information technology IT2023 were featured in the June issue of IEEE Region 8 News magazine (Vol 4 No 2). You can access the full issue at the following link. The News bulletin is published quartterly and distributed to over 80000 IEEE members in Region 8.

EuroCC2 and IT2023 featured in IEEE Reggion8 News

World Telecomunication and Information Society Day

On World Telecommunications and Information Society Day, prof. Dr. Tomo Popović was invited to participate in the morning TV program on national television RTCG hosted by Ms. Andrea Sekularac. The discussion was about the current state of ICT in Montenegro, digital divide in Montenegro and throughout the world. The very important issue of education and capacity building necessary to address the challenges of digitization was also discussed. During the discussion, important issues of digital transformation, IT megatrends, and especially challenges related to artificial intelligence were touched upon.

prof. Popovic as a guest to morning show on national TV (RTCG)
RTCG program “Dobro jutro” hosted by Ms. Andrea Šekularac
We discussed education and capacity building needed for digitalization

FF4EuroHPC experiment AIMHIGH featured in national magazine Glasnik

FF4EuroHPC experiment AIMHIGH featured in national magazine Glasnik published by Montenegrin Chamber of Economy (Feb-Mar 2023 issue). The article provides summary and results of the FF4EuroHPC experiment called AIMHiGH that focuses on the use of HPC and AI for developing computer vision solutions for smart farming solutions in poultry sector. The focus of the article is to provide an insight on how HPC can be utilized by SMEs, in this case focused on digital innovation, to provide smart solutions for agri-food sector. The full version of the magazine can be accessed here.