Inspiring Innovation: Highlights from Databooster’s Project Day
By Milena Perraudin, data innovation alliance
It was truly inspiring to see so many innovative ways data-driven methods can improve the lives of animals, humans, and society as a whole. From improving our behavior in front of screens, detecting distress in horses, and facilitating the mobility of people in wheelchairs to identifying small damages in bridges and more. The Innovation Booster Databooster, powered by Innosuisse, supported a wide range of fascinating projects. Read on to get inspired by the highlights of the Project Day on June 25th, 2024, at Oracle in Zurich. An afternoon where 35 data enthusiasts gathered to gain firsthand insights into the innovation journeys and lessons learned from innovators, exchange ideas, and network together.
The afternoon started with Huseyn Gasimov from Intelec AI, who presented their newly developed app. The app, still in its early stages, aims to improve children’s behavior in front of screens by ensuring they maintain an appropriate distance. The vision is to develop an app that runs in the background of digital devices, informing users when they unconsciously position themselves in unhealthy ways.
In the following presentation, Miriam Baumgartner from Agroscope informed the audience about their ability to detect distress in horses in free-range stables. The sensor-based data allows horse owners to track the well-being of their horses from a distance and avoid stress-based injuries.
The next presenter Dirk Zimanky from edisconet summarized their project as follows: “As seasoned professionals leave the workforce, the risk of losing valuable tacit experience “Silent Knowledge” looms large. Yet, collecting this tacit knowledge holds immense potential for future growth and success, both on individual and organizational levels.
edisconet is developing a platform that utilizes advanced AI techniques, such as scripted interviews transforming spoken knowledge into a usable format stored within databases. The Silent Knowledge project seeks to seamlessly convert tacit expert knowledge into new learnings, at the same time optimizing the training process for newcomers.” Do you want to try out the current state of the app and its abilities? Download the app Memoro and see for yourself.
Other highlights included the presentation from Iman El Telt from Topo Helvetica. Their Slowlution project aims at facilitating travel and mobility for people in wheelchairs. Additionally, Giulia Aguzzi from Kistler Instrumente demonstrated how they use Graph Neural Networks to detect abnormalities in bridge structures to ensure long-term stability.
After a refreshing networking break, participants were introduced to the projects “SkyScan: Object Detection from Limited Flight Data” presented by Eric Chaubert from ELIX. Massimo Menzio from MTF and Ayoub Omran from SUPSI presented a novelty for the construction industry: an innovative tool for simplifying the drafting of buildings’ specifications.
Manuel Kugler, from our partner SATW, presented the results of an incredible collaborative effort involving 70 domain experts on how to use the power of AI to mitigate the impact of climate change on Switzerland. Michele Bolla from ERNI provided insights into the benefits of open data value creation that were addressed in a cross-industry workshop.
Indiana Valerian from ANTS presented their journey towards a local and more affordable Machine Learning setup with distributed hardware to enable innovation with a chatGPT-type AI-assistant while keeping data safe and local.
Before the networking apéro, participants were introduced to further funding opportunities for national and transnational projects by Tim Llewellynn from EU Research and Frank Wolff, an Innosuisse Mentor.
Once again, participants left inspired, having connected with old and new data enthusiasts. Tomas Tamfal, Data Scientist at ERNI, summarized it well: “It’s always inspiring to be part of such innovative discussions and to connect with brilliant minds in the industry.”
See you next time!
