Digital technologies.

The Digital Health & Care Institute (DHI) is one Scotland’s 8 Innovation Centres funded by the Scottish Funding Council and Scottish Government.   We play a pivotal role in inspiring, enabling and combining world-leading industry and academic expertise with service, business and technical innovation to create person-centred digital health and care innovations to positively impact society.

DHI focuses on shirting the balance of care from traditional treatment models through the development of digital health and care innovations that focus on prevention, early detection, post event care and independent assisted living.   With our unique and valuable range of capabilities for Scotland combed with core knowledge and expertise built on the foundation of five years’ experience, we operate an effective partnership model, bringing together health and care practitioners, industry and academia to collaborate to solve key demand-led challenges.

DHI is a non for-profit organisation fully funded by Scottish Government through the Scottish Funding Council and the NHS in Scotland. Tasked with addressing the current societal challenges facing health and care services through the use of digital tools and services it also makes an economic development contribution to Scotland and the wider UK by creating opportunities for SMEs and mid cap companies to develop, test and deploy solutions into the Scottish NHS as well as generating inward investment into Scotland. DHI is also a grant awarding body, allocating funding to academic institutions individually or in partnership with industry to take forward academic research and service evaluation as a way of encouraging and supporting innovation as well as creating a credible evidence base that can help secure a route to national and international markets for companies that it works with.

The hub will focus on two main types of activity.

 

The first is “simulation”. DHI will provide data sharing infrastructure that is integrated into health board, local government and third sector care delivery systems. This will allow participating SMEs to connect to this infrastructure and show their products working within a functioning ecosystem – e.g. being able to upload monitoring data or download clinical record data. Individual simulations will be run with DHI developing ‘dummy data’ based test users that can be used to show how integrated systems work together for real, building confidence in the SME product by showing it working in tandem with health systems and other suppliers. When a simulation is successful, DHI will help the SMEs to attract further funding, using the simulation as proof of concept and route to market to improve the hit rate for funding bids.

 

The second is “demonstration”. A design, engagement and project management team will showcase services and products provided by SMEs in a Glasgow based showroom. The team will work with SMEs to create co-designed user stories about seamless and integrated digital service delivery and its benefits. In many cases parts of this story will be simulated as per the above section, to help build confidence in the feasibility and route to market. This material will be used with DHI’s partners across public services, academia and industry – to help people form consortia to seek further funding or to take products into trial or operation. As DHI regularly demonstrates these outputs, they will gather feedback and use this to inform and progress SME capabilities – both technical and commercial, while also influencing commissioners to specify digital services that align with these capabilities.

  Digital technologies.

Our story

Advanced digital technologies can accelerate growth and increase productivity across the UK economy. To help reach this full potential Digital Catapult, in 2017 alone, has had meaningful engagements with 638 startups and scaleups, 42 new industrial collaborations and 31 new academic engagements to drive innovation and adoption of advanced digital technologies. To make this happen, Digital Catapult delivers three core technology programmes, across two industry sectors, driven by three regional centres and a national centre in London.

How Digital Catapult promotes development and the early adoption of advanced digital technology

We provide physical and digital facilities for experimentation and testing that would otherwise not be accessible for smaller companies.
Our innovation programmes drive collaboration and encourage use of the facilities. By bringing together small companies, corporates, researchers and investors, the right solutions are developed to solve industry challenges, increase productivity and open up new markets faster.
We connect corporations, small businesses and academic researchers to get the latest thinking into the heart of industry and discover new ways to solve big challenges in the manufacturing and creative industries.  
We convene and deliver collaborative research and development that leads to commercial exploitation and companies reducing risk.
We leverage public funding to yield increased private investment.

As well as breaking down barriers to technology adoption for startups and scaleups, our work de-risks innovation for large enterprises and uncovers new commercial applications in Immersive, Future Networks, and Artificial Intelligence technologies.

Our technology focus

Digital Catapult specialises in three areas of advanced digital technology namely, Future Networks, Artificial Intelligence and Immersive.

Digital Catapult focuses on these areas because each has demonstrated:

UK strength in both the research base and startups.
Accelerating pre-market innovation indicating that the time to act is now.
A clear global opportunity for UK companies in manufacturing or the creative industries.
A clear opportunity for Digital Catapult to add value and to speed up the processes of digital transformation.

Artificial Intelligence (AI and machine learning)

Digital Catapult is leading technology adoption in the Industrial Strategy’s AI Grand Challenge, where they call the wide range of technologies, tooling and processes involved ‘AI Plumbing’. Like actual plumbing, AI Plumbing can be complex, risky and expensive. To address these challenges, the Digital Catapult has embarked on a number of initiatives: 

They have started to map the AI Plumbing landscape in order to assist discovery, research and planning tasks. We describe the landscape here, and invite feedback.
Running their own machine intelligence projects and having DevOps and systems specialists in-house that work with our machine intelligence team to solve them, they will share how they have overcome specific AI challenges in upcoming blogs, along with useful tips and tools for doing the same.
They host meetups and workshops to illuminate some of the AI Plumbing technologies and strategies.
They have developed an ethics framework that will help companies to implement responsible AI in practice.

Key projects include Machine Intelligence Garage and ContractAI.
Read more

Future Networks (5G and Low Powered Wide Area Networks)

Digital Catapult is driving the development of future networks business models from concept in university labs, to commercial reality with our projects within IoT, 5G and LPWAN that includes Things Connected and the 5G testbed in Brighton.
Read more

Immersive (virtual, augmented, mixed reality and haptics)

Digital Catapult is making the UK the best place in the world to produce immersive content and applications through our projects such as CreativeXR, Augmentor the Immersive Labs and the first European volumetric capture studio.

Read more

Our industry focus

Advanced digital technologies have huge potential to accelerate growth and increase productivity if they are applied to real-world challenges. Digital Catapult is working within two industry sectors where we believe we can have the most impact by increasing the use of digital technology. These sectors are manufacturing and the creative industries. 

Within this our goals are to:

Accelerate the number of trailblazer companies working with advanced digital technologies.
Deliver increased applied research, development and innovation in advanced digital technologies.

Digital Catapult is uniquely positioned to bring together the right innovators, academics, corporates and investors to drive early adoption of digital technologies into industry. We run innovation programmes and offer facilities that help to translate world-leading research and innovation into products and services that will transform these industries, increase productivity and secure the UK’s future global competitiveness.
Digital technologies.

DigIT Hub We help the public sector and manufacturing industry in Southern Sweden reach their digitalisation goals.   Digitalisation is a broad term, and digitalisation needs vary within each organization. Through DigIT Hub, we are using digitalisation as an engine to create sustainable and efficient processes and working methods, strengthened competitiveness, and better tailored services in the region. We help organisations in southern Sweden (Skåne and Blekinge) stay relevant through digital transition; allowing them to meet expectations of customers, employees and citizens who are becoming increasingly digital.   Towards "Smart Cities" & "Smart Industry" DigIT Hub is specifically aimed at small and medium-sized companies in the manufacturing industry, as well as entities in the public sector. The initiatives we work with fall broadly within the areas "Smart Cities" and "Smart Industry". No digitalisation issue is too big or too small to share with us, and we offer both introductory and advanced digitalisation support.   What we offer DigIT Hub offers support for digitalisation in the following ways: LEARN: Skills & Training We work closely with training centers, educational providers and research institutions to help build digital skills within your organisation. We build digital capacity for those currently employed, as well as for future generations. TEST: Test-Before-Invest We offer test-before-invest environments, that allow for hands-on demonstration and trial before investing in new tools or equipment that support or enable digitalisation. This is offered in both digital and physical settings. NETWORK: An Innovation Ecosystem We provide access to an innovation ecosystem that offers a range of tools and services to help you identify, select and implement appropriate technologies and digital processes that meet your current needs. INVEST: Support to Find Investments We ensure that you are never alone on your digital journey, with direct access to financing opportunities and a vast network of partners in business, academia and the public sector.   Founding organisations In 2020, DigIT Hub was established as a regional Digital Innovation Hub (DIH) in southern Sweden and has since been appointed by the European Commission as a European Digital Innovation Hub (EDIH). DigIT Hub is currently funded by the European Regional Development Fund and Region Skåne, and is led by regional, non-profit cluster organisations Mobile Heights, Media Evolution and IUC Syd in collaboration with Lund University (LTH) and Malmö University. DigIT Hub is also supported by key partners in the public sector, research, business and industry.   Digital technologies.

The overall objective of DIGIS3 is to ensure the smart, sustainable and cohesive digital transformation of SMEs and Public Administration entities, with an urban and rural territorial scope focused on cohesion, through comprehensive support to users, facilitating their access to specialized technical knowledge and experimentation environments, in a one-stop shop service whose central core of knowledge and training is structured around Artificial Intelligence and supercomputing, bearing in mind cybersecurity as a necessary layer in any digitization process. This accompaniment will be carried out through appropriate digitalization itineraries, according to the digital maturity level of the users, and also taking into account the specific needs of the sector and the geographical environment. Digital technologies.

DIGIPARC (Digital Partnership Centre) is the first digital innovation hub located in Rijeka, acting as a centre for digital transformation of industry and catering to the needs of the North Adriatic region.  It was selected by the European Commission as the only DIH in the Adriatic NUTS2 region of Croatia participating in the "Smart Factories in New EU Member States" project.

DIGIPARC's aim is to offer a locally embedded, cross-border one-stop-shop for digital transformation of businesses and products/services by speaking the language of SMEs, brokering between their needs and relevant tech providers, equipping companies and employees with necessary skills through education in order to deliver new value in the region.

DIGIPARC’s vision is to become a regional centre for digital transformation where business, education, and innovation compete and collaborate in order to align traditional industries with market needs, foster entrepreneurship, and deliver new value through demand-driven, client-focused support. The hub’s mission is to:

Revitalize and increase the competitiveness of local industries through digital transformation;
Provide development and brokering support tailored to the regional market needs, focused on sustainability;
Raise awareness of importance of digital transformation through mentoring, coaching, and education.

What is so unique about DIGIPARC? This digital innovation hub is one-of-a-kind place in the North Adriatic due to the combination of support mechanisms if offers to the entire digital transformation chain. When expressed shortly, DIGIPARC’s unique selling proposition is as follows:

Providing digital transformation of your business for positive change, growth, and success.

Starting with establishing a vision for the future product, service, or business model; assessing the end user’s current state; developing a digital transformation road map; integrating operations and technology at a higher degree than before; and identifying the human resource strategy and organizational structure that will favour innovation and continual improvement, DIGIPARC will cater to the demand side of the market and remain focused on the end user.

The following makes DIGIPARC distinct relative to all other competence centers, clusters, and entrepreneurial support facilities in the vicinity:

Combination of know-how deeply rooted in the industrial heritage of the region
Combination of institutional partners representing all facets of the regional ecosystem (private sector, local and national governments, higher education institutions, research and innovation companies, development agencies, entrepreneurial support facilities)
Availability of expert network and an international pool of knowledge
Track record of creating customized, industry-specific solutions
Access to state-of-the-art infrastructure
Focus on co-creation, sharing, and participative collaboration

For DIGIPARC’s unique selling proposition to align with the transformation road map it will have to deliver compressed time frames. Digital technologies.

DIGIMAT DIH is introducing and implementing digital technologies into manufacturing companies in South Moravian region (Czech Republic). DIGIMAT DIH coordinates particular activities, contributes to education and recruitment of companies, interconnects companies with experts and helps to establish new projects in order to allow implementation of digital technologies into the Moravian manufacturing companies. 

DIGIMAT DIH  is first fully operational DIH in the Czech Republic providing companies (especialy SMEs) with customized services including needs analysis, tailor-made solution and its implementation with acredited expert (experts are part of regional expert scheme within programme JIC PLATINN).

DIGIMAT DIH is an open platform to accommodate very diverse needs of Moravian manufacturing companies. Core partners contributing to DIGIMAT DIH are INTEMAC, Brno University of Technology, Industry Cluster 4.0 and JIC. These 4 key members ensure also inclusion of other important actors (such as companies, chamber of commerce) in the DIH activities. Services provided to companies in DIGIMAT DIH are financed from regional government of South Moravian region. Digital technologies.

DIGIHALL is the official Digital Innovation Hub for the Ile-de-France region.

The DIH seeks to federate the Region's innovation ecosystem, answering the needs of industry more efficiently and contributing to the creation of a European innovation market.

DIGIHALL is led by an RTO (CEA LIST) and an industry cluster (SYSTEMATIC), who federate the different actors in the hub, spanning academia and education providers, venture capital, incubators, and testbeds / affiliate programmes aimed at accelerating the pace of technology adoption and value creation. 

DIGIHALL members are also active in the efforts to build and work with European digital platforms, making them available to industry partners to ease the deployment of new technology.

The DIH is supported by the Regional Government of Ile-de-France and enshrined in its Smart Industry strategy. 

The DIH includes a network of competence centres in the following areas:

- Artificial Intelligence

- Cyberphysical Systems and IoT

- Cybersecurity

- High-Power Computing

 - Additive Manufacturing

- Control and Non-Destructive Testing

- Robotics

In the case of the Robotics Competence Centre, DIGIHALL relies on the RIF@Paris-Saclay Robotics Innovation Facility, active at European level since 2013 through the ECHORD++ initiative. Digital technologies.

DigiCenterNS supports Pohjois-Savo region companies in their digital transformation journeys by providing services that improve digital skills, foster technology testing and increase networking of companies.

Our Digital Innovation Hub, DigiCenter North Savo, operates at Pohjois-Savo region and helps local companies, mainly small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), in their digitalization development problems focusing on the Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence (AI), and digital services.

The focus areas of Pohjois-Savo region are Digitalisation, ICT in Manufacturing and Energy Technology and Digital transformation in Health industry. Companies in the area are struggling with following topics: digitizing  the  services, understanding  business opportunities  of  digitalisation  while  creating  strategies,  digital  marketing,  and  e-commerce, use  of  online  customer  service  tools and more specific: AI, Internet of Things and robotics, utilizing digital communication channels, learning human behaviour in the context of digitalisation, programming, and information security.

Services:

Technology & Knowledge Transfer Services aim at enhancing the transfer of digital technologies and digital knowhow in Pohjois-Savo region and increase the digitalization-related networking. These services shall strengthen the local research and innovation capacities.
R&D&I Services aim at provide Pohjois-Savo region companies with up-to-date information on features, opportunities and limitation of new digital technologies. Additionally, the goal of DigiCenterNS is to identify and build digital innovation platforms that companies may have access by request.
Funding and Project Preparation Services aim at increasing funding (regional, national, international) applied in Pohjois-Savo region by coaching, supporting and networking companies in the context of digitalization funding

Currently our DigiCenterNS operates with non-profit status and DigiCenterNS coordinators are non-profit organizations.

  Digital technologies.

Dig-I-Hub is committed to open innovation which brings together innovation organisations from various parts of Hungary. The quadruple helix approach is implemented this way not only regionally (in the agglomeration area of Kecskemét) but covers also the national level. Dig-I-Hub is located physically at IQ Kecskemét Industrial Research Kft which is a regional competence centre for construction and manufacturing of metals

 

Regional partners with headquarters Kecskemét include the John von Neumann University (JNU) as regional centre for higher education with specialization in automation and robotics), EU-Mentor Nonprofit Kft  as economic development organisation with regional focus (coordinator of Dig-I-Hub) and Hungarian member of the European Association of Development Agencies. The core team of partners represents this way the research community (JNU), civil society (EU-Mentor) and the industry (IQ Kecskemét).

 

Dig-I-Hub in Kecskemét offers “one-stop-shop” service - in cooperation with partner organisations in Hungary and abroad - for companies that are looking for practical solutions for their problems when new innovative methods and modern (often digital) technologies can increase the efficiency and/or reduce the environmental impact of industrial production.

 

Dig-I-Hub partnership brings together the main players for industrial innovation in Kecskemét with extensive cooperation links to other knowledge centers in Hungary. Objective for next years is to establish an innovation hub for manufacturing and construction on the basis of IQ Kecskemét which is a physical location for open innovation in architecture and construction industry offering prototyping facilities (CNC machines, 3D scanners and printers), vocational training site and technology development services.

 

The medium term vision of Dig-I-Hub is to become the acknowledged regional center for entrepreneurial support in digital transformation of the industry which can provide practical advice and support to the SMEs in the region for their activities in digital technology development. It shall lead to the development of an eco-system for innovation that can promote the innovation culture in the central region of Hungary because knowledge based economic development should not be constrained to the capital region of Budapest. The long term objective is to play an active role in transnational cooperation for innovation in Central Europe as regional center for industrial digitalization and open innovation in selected industrial sectors and also to foster cooperation and open innovation transnationally on European level. Digital technologies.