Transportation sector undergoes a considerable transformation as it enters a new landscape where connectivity is seamless and mobility options and related business models are constantly increasing. Modern transportation systems and services have to mitigate problems emerging from complex mobility environments and intensive use of transport networks including excessive CO2 emissions, high congestion levels and reduced quality of life. Due to the saturation of most urban networks, innovative solutions to the above problems need to be underpinned by collecting, processing and broadcasting an abundance of data from various sensors, systems and service providers. Furthermore, such novel transport systems have to foresee situations in near real time and provide the means for proactive decisions, which in turn will deter problems before they even emerge. Our vision is to provide the required interoperability, adaptability and dynamicity in modern transport systems for a proactive and problem-free transportation system. OPTIMUM will establish a largely scalable, distributed architecture for the management and processing of multisource big-data, enabling continuous monitoring of transportation systems needs and proposing proactive decisions and actions in an (semi-) automatic way. OPTIMUM follows a cognitive approach based on the Observe, Orient, Decide, Act loop of the big data supply chain for continuous situational awareness. OPTIMUM's goals will be achieved by incorporating and advancing state of the art in transport and traffic modeling, travel behavior analysis, sentiment analysis, big data processing, predictive analysis and real-time event-based processing, persuasive technologies and proactive recommenders. The proposed solution will be deployed in real-life pilots in order to realise challenging use cases in the domains of proactive improvement of transport systems quality and efficiency, proactive charging for freight transport and Car2X communication integration.

The Da.Re. project (Da.Re. stands for “Data science pathways to Re-imagine education”) is an initiative proposed and managed by 11 different partners (Loccioni AEA s.r.l., Università degli Studi di Camerino, Nissatec, Maisis - Information Systems Lda., The Open University, Abelium d.o.o., raziskave in razvoj, Univerza na Primorskem Università del Litorale, Instituto Politécnico de Bragança, Vision Scientific Ltd., e-consulenza, Associazione degli Industriali) based in 5 European countries (Italy, Slovenia, Portugal, Serbia and the UK).The project was created for responding to a very important issue raised by different kind of organizations in the world: data scientist will represent one of the most required professional figures in the next years, while the shortage of this kind of professionals is already an issue quantified in hundreds of thousands of uncovered job positions.More, the distance between Higher Education Institutions (HEI) and the business sector is still very big and the so called “knowledge triangle” should be helped in its crucial connective function.It is also well known in Europe that data increasingly drives all social and economic activity and innovation, and that strength in data science is fundamental to economic success and social wellbeing. Over the last decade it has become clear that data has huge latent value with companies such as Facebook, Amazon, and Google finding ways to monetize that latency to gain spectacular revenues. This has been highly disruptive to societies worldwide creating new kinds of social and economic interactions with both positive and negative effects. Through initiatives such as the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) Europe is a world leader in mitigating the negative effects of the big data revolution and establishing ethical principles for the use of personal information. However, Europe lags behind the USA in the emergence of companies and organisations able to manage big data and extract value from it.In this framework the Da.Re. project was intended to obtain a fundamental target, the creation of a full training curriculum of European Qualifications Framework (EQF) level 7 organized to be:-Cross sectoral-International-Multi-targeted-AccessibleIn order to do so, the Consortium created 3 different phases intended to 1.analyse the EU State of the Art in the field of Data Science, comparing the training offer with the demand of the European organizations for such a kind of professional, in order to find gaps among these 2 elements (Intellectual Output 1);2.work creating modules to be experimented on real case studies for training a new generation of Data Scientists (Intellectual Output 2);3.apply the knowledge and experience gained during the 2 previous phases to better shape the final curriculum and make propositions to HEIs and Ministries of Education in EU (Intellectual Output 3).Thanks to the effort put on this action by the different partners, Da.Re. raised an international interest that went even beyond the European borders, reaching more than 120 countries. The initiative collected the direct interest of stakeholders in different ways, leveraging on social networks, the project website, newsletters, participatory and multiplier events, conferences and seminars. In total, the project directly involved more than 1.000 stakeholders thanks to these different initiatives.The pilot course created with the project obtained more than 200 applications (while the available material online already reached more than 600 downloads), and the modules created, together with the final curriculum produced will constitute a heritage for the future work to be made in this crucial and horizontal sector represented by Data Science.

There are three main reasons for an immediate innovation action to apply big data technologies in Healthcare. Firstly, a Healthy nation is a Wealthy nation! An improvement in health leads to economic growth through long-term gains in human and physical capital, which ultimately raises productivity and per capita GDP. Secondly, Healthcare is one of the most expensive sectors, which accounts for 10% of the EU’s GDP continuously becoming more expensive. Thirdly, as healthcare is traditionally very conservative with adopting ICT, while big healthcare data is becoming available, the expected impact of applying big data technologies in Healthcare is enormous. BigMedilytics will transform Europe’s Healthcare sector by using state-of-the-art Big Data technologies to achieve breakthrough productivity in the sector by reducing cost, improving patient outcomes and delivering better access to healthcare facilities simultaneously, covering the entire Healthcare Continuum – from Prevention to Diagnosis, Treatment and Home Care throughout Europe. BigMedilytics produces: • A Big Data Healthcare Analytics Blueprint (defining platforms and components), which enables data integration and innovation spanning all the key players across the Healthcare Data Value Chains • Instantiations of the Blueprint which implement BigMedilytics concepts across 12 large-scale pilots accounting for an estimated 86% of deaths and 77% of the disease burden in Europe • The Best “Big Data technology and Healthcare policy” Practices related to big data technologies, new business models and European and national healthcare data policies and regulations. BigMedilytics will maximize the impact by using its Big Data Healthcare Analytics Blueprint and the Best Practices to scale-up the concepts demonstrated in the 12 pilots, to the whole Healthcare sector in Europe. It will use health records of more than 11 million patients across 8 countries and data from other sectors such as insurance and public sector.

VISION: By 2023, Europe will set the reference for the Industry 4.0 market: European CPS/IOT Open Digital Platforms providers will be able to flexibly and dynamically connect the Real World with digital Enterprise Systems through common open standards; European ICT SMEs will be growing fast through leadership in data-driven smart Industry 4.0 services; European Manufacturing SMEs will successfully compete globally with innovative products and services, digitised Industry 4.0 processes and innovative business models, involving their workforce at all levels in this Digital Transformation innovations. MISSION. The MIDIH 4.0 project aims at implementing the fast, dynamic, borderless, disruptive side of the I4MS innovation coin: technological services (interactive try-on demos, webinars, challenges, hackathons and awards) will be driven by young and dynamic ICT talents virtually meeting older and experienced manufacturing engineers in a one-stop-shop global marketplace; business services (ideas incubation, business acceleration, demand-offer matchmaking and brokerage, access to finance) will support SMEs, startups, web entrepreneurs as well as corporates in the delivery of innovative products and services, in accessing new markets, in fund-raising; skills building services (serious and role games, participative lessons and webinars, virtual experiments in physical teaching factories, professional courses for existing technicians as well as for executives) will not only help SMEs and corporates understand the new technologies, but also take full advantage of them, providing an operational framework that will stimulate trust, confidence and investments. The MIDIH project is an inclusive Innovation Action of 21 beneficiaries coming from 12 EU Countries, including, Competence Centers, Digital Innovation Hubs, CPS/IOT Technology Providers as well as Lighthouse Manufacturing Industries. A two-iteration Open Call will help achieve a critical mass of cross-border experiments.