HPC Montenegro - Page 41 of 68 - National Competence Centre for High-Performance Computing

27.07.2023.02.02.2024.

Twinning activities: NCC Romania and Montenegro

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.

AGENDA RONCC TWINNING EVENT 27th-July-2023 Download

22.07.2023.25.07.2023.

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)

21.07.2023.21.07.2023.

Four BSc theses on Artificial Intelligence and applications

We are happy to report that 4 BSc theses were defended on 18.07.2023. that were relevant to AI applications. These theses were done under mentorship of HPC4S3ME and EUROCC team. This is all part of building scientific and innovation potential to utilize HPC and AI in different domains of S3 Smart Specialisation Strategy in Montenegro. This is a great exampe of NCC support and cross-project collaboration. More about HPC4S3ME project can be found at: link.

Ms Tamara Lasica: “Development of Generative AI (GenAI)” (link)
Ms Elda Kalac: “Artificial intelligence and big data analytics” (link)
Mr Nikola Kavaric: “Explainable Artificial Intelligence” (link)
Mr Elvis Taruh: “Artificial intelligence and video games” (link)

19.07.2023.15.09.2023.

AI4S3 – educational project proposal approved

The Innovation Fund of Montenegro (the Fund) publishes the list of projects approved for financing within the framework of the Public Call for encouraging the development of innovation culture and the organization of education in the areas of smart specialization. The fund allocated funds in the total amount of 130,000 euros for financing projects within two program lines according to this Public Call. The public call for the mentioned program lines was open from May 8 to June 15, 2023.

The Faculty of Information Systems and Technologies, University of Donja Gorica, proposed the educational project “Application of computer vision and deep learning in agriculture and food production, medicine and energy (AI4S3)” which was highly evaluated and approved for funding. This project focuses on training participants for the application of AI in the priority domains of the Smart Specialization Strategy of Montenegro (S3 Montenegro). This project is continuation of UDG and NCC Montenegro efforts to offer best education and training for HPC, AI and IT in general to Montenegrin stakeholders. The training will take place from October to December 2023.

Education in domains of S3 Montengro by the Innovation Fund of Montenegro

24 projects were submitted to the public call for the program line to encourage the development of innovative culture, of which 21 projects were sent for evaluation, while 35 projects were registered for the program line for the organization of education in the areas of smart specialization in Montenegro, of which 32 projects were sent for evaluation conducted by the Fund’s expert committee, in accordance with the Rulebook on the evaluation process. More info available at the following link.

30.06.2023.03.07.2023.

Digital Europe Programme opens to Montengro

Today, the Commission signed association agreements for the Digital Europe Programme with Montenegro, North Macedonia, Albania and Serbia, on the margins of the Regulatory Dialogue with the Western Balkans. Following the signatures, and upon the completion of the related ratification processes, the association agreements will enter into force. Businesses, public administrations and other eligible organisations in these neighbouring countries will be able to access the calls of the Digital Europe Programme, which has an overall budget of €7.5 billion in the 2021-2027 period.

In particular, participants from these four countries will be able to take part in projects that deploy digital technologies across the EU in specific areas such as artificial intelligence, and advanced digital skills. They will also be able to set up Digital Innovation Hubs in their own regions. This will bring them closer to the EU economy and society, benefit their technology capabilities and support digitalisation overall, notably of small and medium-sized businesses. (Source: European Commission – link)

Digital Europe Programme opens to Montenegro and EuroCC2

28.06.2023.30.06.2023.

Meeting with representatives of Faculty of Science and Mathematics, University of Montenegro

The representatives of Faculty of Natural Sciences and Mathematics from University of Montenegro were welcomed by the experts and researchers at HPC NCC Montenegro, who presented EuroCC2 project, NCC Montenegro activities and available supercomputing infrastructure and services. The HPC NCC team highlighted the NCC’s commitment to facilitating collaborations between academia and industry, through shared HPC resources, expertise and experience.

The representatives of Faculty of Natural Sciences and Mathematics were particularly interested in understanding how the supercomputing resources at HPC NCC could be leveraged for ML models and public sector applications, as well as to address complex research challenges and interdisciplinary collaboration. The NCC team also emphasized HPC/AI workshops and cross-NCCs trainings sessions to enhance the computational capabilities of researchers and familiarize them with HPC infrastructure and software tools and techniques.

The collaboration between these institutions has the potential to improve scientific research and accelerate advancements in various public fields.

27.06.2023.03.07.2023.

Master thesis: Computer vision and AI in medicine

Mr Dejan Babic, a young researcher from UDG, just defended his Master thesis on the use of computer vision and artificial intelligence in medicine. This is a great example of using ICT for vertical priority domains of Monteengrin S3. This research was supported in part by HPC4S3ME project and EUROCC. Mr Babic intends to continue his research in this domain and to enroll PhD program at the UDG. Mr Babic explored the use of different tools for ML and he also experimened with the use of HPC for training prediction models that can be used in medicine. He was one of the first MSc theses defended from the Artificial Intelligence Master program created under the EuroCC project.

ABSTRACT – Artificial Intelligence is transforming the way we live, work, and communicate with the world. The proliferation of data has been the biggest driver of AI in recent years. AI in medicine is rapidly developing and holds great potential in revolutionizing healthcare systems. Its application is already producing promising results in disease detection, diagnosis and drug discovery. AI is widely used in medical facilities worldwide as a decision support tool for patient diagnosis. It is expected to bring significant benefits to healthcare sector. In this thesis, the focus is on the application of artificial intelligence and computer vision in solving real medical problems. The research is both theoretical and empirical and focuses on the application of artificial intelligence and computer vision in the detection of pneumonia, segmentation of blood vessels in the retina, and estimation of cardiovascular risk. The main goal of the research is to achieve the highest possible accuracy in specific cases and approaches, in order for these approaches to be considered applicable in medicine. Throughout the study, some of the ethical issues related to the use of this technology were also raised. At the end of the study, the results, potential challenges, and future directions of this research were discussed.