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Digital Innovation Hubs Working Group Meeting on
Big Data and Artificial Intelligence
Brussels, 7th November 2018
Dr. Diego López-de-Ipiña González-de-Artaza
Project Coordinator – University of Deusto/DeustoTech
info@edincubator.eu
http://www.edincubator.eu @edincubator

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EDI: European Data Incubator

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EDI Incubation Approach (I)

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EDI Incubation Approach (II)

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What’s in for startups?

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Open Call
for Data
Providers

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Benefits for Corporates
▪ Access to top-level startups sorting out your business
challenge at no cost*.
▪ Participation in the selection of the startups.
▪ Link with state-of-the-art data-based solutions for your
business.
▪ Potential opportunities for investment or technology
purchase.
▪ Be part of one of the biggest incubation and
acceleration programmes in Europe.
*No hidden fees. The EC finances EDI for this scouting and preparation for investment activites under H2020
programme budget.

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Open Call
for Data
Startups
(2nd round)

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EDI’s ultimate goal
▪ Foster Big Data Innovation connecting corporations with
top EU-startups.
▪ Leverage corporations’ unused assets (data) for new
business opportunities.
▪ Link with corporate venture capital to facilitate
investments.
▪ Build the future of the Data Market, boosting Data
Economy

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EDI as a Digital Innovation Hub (I)
• How has EDI helped companies to create new data-driven products and services?
– So far 16 startups from 9 countries are addressing 10 challenges from 9 Data Providers in
Europe, helping them into their Digital Transformation:
• Energy sector:
– Thermal power plant management
– Detection of anomalies in smart meters
– HVAC usage management and control optimization
• Industry sector:
– Predictive maintenance of robots
• Retail:
– Prevent fraud in cashiers
• Transport/Smart Cities:
– Pricing bundles for drivers in Porto
– Improving road safety in Barcelona
– Optimizing traffic flow in Berlin
• Weather:
– Quality control of weather forecast
• Media:
– Sentiment analysis in consumer journey

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EDI as a Digital Innovation Hub (II)
• What are the services most demanded by the companies?
– Hard to say, only progressed into 2nd stage of incubation (EXPERIMENT) but …
• For startups:
– Access to good quality datasets from big corporations which are well documented/explained from Data
Providers
– Opportunity to showcase the potential of their solutions
• For Data Providers:
– Assurance dataset is not used beyond incubation programme
– Opportunity to outsource creation of novel solutions to their problems
• What are the main requirements and bottlenecks in helping companies to use
data as the base for their new or improved business models/products/services?
– Many companies have the data and knowledge domain but not the data analysis skills
– Others have Data Science skills and open mind but lack access to datasets and
knowledge on domain
– Data providers afraid that they may lose control of data
– Need to establish agreements between both sides
– Lack of Data and AI culture in companies

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EDI as Digital Innovation Hub (III)
• How an EU-level network of big data innovation hubs could leverage the
work done by the local DIHs in breaking the “data silos” and in fostering
cross-border data sharing and re-use and trading of data assets?
– Need not only for Datasets Marketplaces but also for Data Solutions
– Huge opportunities from linking data from different sectors
• EDI will address this by giving more importance to cross-domain/open challenges
where datasets coming from outside can be used
• Are there any concrete examples showing the added value of a
collaboration between the current big data / AI initiatives and the Digital
Innovation Hubs?
– Our only experience is that FIWARE community startups have also applied for EDI and
some have actually qualified for next phase
• Are there any ideas on how to make such collaborations easier? What
are the incentives for collaboration?
– Self-benefit, data needs solutions, solutions need data

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Thanks a lot!
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020
research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 779790
info@edincubator.eu