Researchers from University of Donja Gorica (UDG) and NCC Montenegro visited partners from Faculty of organizational sciences University of Belgrade (FON UoB) during their summer school at Perast. Colleagues from FON presented their exhibition of AI generated images titled “Imagine Boka” and their activities about startups and marketing.
We presented the most interesting activities on UDG along with activities on NCC Montenegro and the EuroCC project. We spoke about possibilities of future collaboration on educational programs, training courses, digital transformation topics, AI and similar subjects.
Representatives from NCC Montenegro and NCC Romania organized a productive one-day online workshop aimed at sharing knowledge and complementary experiences related to academic collaboration, training activities, industry interaction processes, communication tools and success stories/use cases. The agenda for the meeting is available at this link.
During the workshop, participants contributed with valuable insights and engaged in constructive discussions around common challenges including: training portfolio development, open source code repositories, cross-NCCs Open Call for innovative SMEs, technical expertise /HPC infrastructure access, methodologies for competence mapping, needs assessment end-user engagement, service offerings, communication channels exploitation etc.
A dedicated session was also conducted, with a focus on HPC/HPDA/AI success stories and use cases, primarily in smart agriculture, precise meteorology, and medical AI/ML based applications. This session generated discussions on benefits provided by AI/ML models and underlying HPC technologies, including increased productivity, enhanced model performance, improved accuracy and time-saving solutions.
The collaboration between both teams proved successful start, setting a solid foundation for future joint activities. Initial timing and resource planning were discussed for upcoming joint training sessions tailored for academia, researchers and students, as well as an opportunity for co-organized workshops designed for industry managers.
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.
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 EENT. 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
We had a pleasure to host one of the greateast minds of digital world, Vitalik Buterin (founder of Ethereum), and his fellow Zuzaluans, habitants of pop-up city in Montenegro.
World-leading innovators presented their ideas of Montenegro’s golden age, shared their ideas of Montenegro’s future reinforced by the most modern technologies and game-changing concepts. An amazing afternoon will have it’s second part in May! Stay tuned!
Vitalik Buterin with UDG studentsA fantastic lineup of speakers
Speakers shared their path, where they once were and how they got to where they are now. They shared their dreams and their vision for the future, and what brought them to Montenegro. At the same time, this workshop was a platform for UDG students to showcase their creativity, ideas and perspective, which are critical to shaping the future of any industry. Speakers at the event were Vitalik Buterin, Milojko Mickey Spajic, Tomiwa Ademidun, Gary Sheng, Veronica S. and Zoja Šćekić. The event was moderated by Nela Milošević.
Vitalik Buterin with students during the workshop work group activitySpeakers engaged with students in the discussionTomiwa Ademidun started the Pasts/Presents/Futures workshopEveryone had a great time while discussing future of MontenegroDiscussing innovation and technology as a platform to co-create a vision for Montenegro 2.0Looking forward to the follow up event
Within the two-day SmAgTech EXPO VIRAL event held at the University of Donja Gorica in the period from February 23 to 24, 2023 the results of the EuroCC project were presented with a special focus on the application of HPC and Ai/ML for computer vision in smart chicken farms.
Ms. Bojana Malisic presented the project to the visitors
The event gathered over 300 visitors from Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Slovenia, the Netherlands, including agricultural small and medium-sized enterprises, representatives of the IT sector, and academy. In addition to the aforementioned, the event was attended by students and high school pupils attending educational programs complementary to agriculture, information technology and food technology.
Mr Stevan Cakic presenting a HPC/AI use case in agriculture
Numerous companies in the field of agriculture, food industry, as well as information technologies and systems that presented their products and services at the fair, had the opportunity to learn about the EuroCC project and the advantages offered by advanced computing in the form of HPC technology.As part of the EXPO, the representatives of NCC Montenegro presented a pilot project-experiment within Horizon 2020 for innovative small and medium-sized enterprises, which is related to the application of HPC technologies in agriculture, specifically in poultry farming, where with the help of HPC technology, diseases among poultry are monitored and predicted by applying machine learning.
Within the FF4EuroHPC experiment, DigitalSmart Montenegro, together with DunavNET, University of Donja Gorica, Radinovic Company, and Meso-promet Franca, used HPC and AI to develop ML prediction models for computer vision that can be ported on Edge AI and integrated into Smart agriculture systems for poultry farms.
The smart agriculture solution developed within this experiment could boost the productivity of poultry farms by potentially reducing both manual labor costs and chicken mortality rates by about 10% each. This is accomplished because assessing the weight of chickens in real-time increases the uniformity of the finished product and reduces the impact of stress on both the chickens and manual labor. Furthermore, real-time insight into poultry barns allows for improving disease management due to early detection.
HPC provided the technology organisations DigitalSmart Montenegro and DunavNET needed to develop smart agriculture solutions quickly and efficiently using machine learning and computer vision, in this case for the needs of the poultry industry. The computer kit has become a part of the PoultryNET platform offering, and there is an opportunity to sell such components to third-party vendors active in the market of smart agriculture solutions.
