Gradiant DemoWeek consolidates as a forum to know the main advances in technology 

The Gradiant technology centre hosted the third edition of the DemoWeek from 3 to 7 October. This event is consolidated as an essential appointment to know the latest advances and trends in technologies focused on connectivity, intelligence and security. Gradiant researchers and other colleagues from the consortia with which they work on different projects, shared with professionals from institutions and companies various panels and demonstrations. In this edition, the programme has also incorporated two areas of great relevance today: unmanned aerial systems (UAS) and Smart Industry.

The 5G networks are the protagonists of the first day

The first day of DemoWeek 2022 was opened by the president of the board of trustees of the technology centre, Alfredo Ramos; the director of the Galician Innovation Agency, Patricia Argerey Vilar and our general manager, Luis Pérez-Freire. In this day, the director of the advanced communications area of Gradiant, Luis Pérez Roca, gave a talk about the 5G networks and its impact on business.

Federico Ruiz, director of the 5G national observatory, also participated in the conference.  In his speech, he shared the current situation of development and deployment of 5G networks. He also encouraged active participation in the development of digitalisation through 5G, hand in hand, between the technology industry and the user industry.

As usual, as it is the differentiating element of these open days, our colleagues performed different demonstrations for the attendees with 5G technologies that we are developing in our testbed.

This first day concluded with an inspiring round table on the role of 5G as a transformational driver for companies. This meeting also served to highlight the need for business users to be able to experiment with 5G technologies in realistic deployments. In this context, 5G testbeds such as Gradiant’s become even more important. These tools remove barriers to accessing expensive technological infrastructures and reduce risks by making the knowledge of expert engineers available to companies. However, certain needs were also shared, such as the need for harmonisation of spectrum regulation in Europe. This would create economies of scale and make business models viable. Another need that was also mentioned was that of an industry-tailored offer.

Artificial Intelligence

Gradiant researchers, as well as other project partners, made demonstrations and shared in several panels the advances achieved in Artificial Intelligence and Cybersecurity during the last year.

In relation to AI, the benefits of its use and success stories in the health sector with the PERSIST H2020 project coordinated by Gradiant were shown.

Agustín Cañas Rodríguez, co-director of Intelligent Systems of Gradiant, was in charge of opening the day with a very interesting presentation on how the use of artificial intelligence facilitates human work.

Iñaki Galera, Digital Healthcare and Innovation Advisor at Dedalus; Lorena Diéguez, CEO at RUBYnanomed: Ariadna Mato Montero from IIS Galicia Sur, Doctor García Mata (CHOU) and Rocío Mosquera, president of Cluster Saúde de Galicia, CSG, starred in an enriching debate in which the potential of IA to fulfil the paradigm of “6P” medicine (Personalised, omniPresent, Participatory, Preventive, Predictive and anticipative) was highlighted.

Big data and health

The round table exemplified, with the experience of the PERSIST H2020 project, the opportunities offered by Big Data in the health sector. It also highlighted the great challenge of simplifying the large volume and complexity of patient-generated data to help medical staff make decisions. They also highlighted the creation of European Health Data Spaces as an opportunity to generate more accurate and efficient AI models and drive research activity and innovation.

As every day, the presentations gave way to case studies with live demonstrations of some of the AI applications created by Gradiant:

▪ ACE, automatic detection and segmentation of tissues in chronic ulcers.

▪ NETA, conversational chatbot for patient care at home

▪ SafeInBed, detection of agitation and risk situations PERSIST, detection and classification of circulating tumour cells

▪ DANA, system to support the anamnesis process

New alliance in cybersecurity: UMI GICTEL

Regarding Cybersecurity, after the opening of the day, the director of Security and Privacy of Gradiant, Juan González, shared an interesting presentation on the opportunities that are presented for R&D in this technological field.

An important milestone during this edition of Demoweek was the presentation of the Joint Research Unit (JRU) for Identity Management and Cybersecurity in Telematic Processes (GICTEL), created by COUNCILBOX and Gradiant. This new alliance aims to ensure cybersecurity in videoconferences and online procedures with the public administration. In addition, it aims to strengthen technological innovations against identity fraud. This project is supported by the Axencia Galega de Innovación and FEDER funds.

In the day dedicated to Cybersecurity, the responsible of Secure Information Processing of Gradiant, Jaime Loureiro, gave an interesting talk about Cryptography as a key tool to protect payments made on the Internet.

The Industrial Cybersecurity focused the last of the talks with a practical presentation of our colleague Borja Pinto, the technical manager of this area, about how to protect the Industrial Factory. This was followed by several demonstrations:

• IMPULSE wallet
• SafeGate
• IDHub
• Honeypots
• VALIDA
• Anonymisation

New features at the third edition of DemoWeek

One of the new additions to the DemoWeek programme were the demonstrations and round table on Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS). Jose Castro, Director of the Northwest Delegation of Sabico Seguridad; Fco. Javier Álvarez, Chief Inspector, Vigo Police and Emiliano Bartolomé, Technical Lead Galician SkyWay Program at Boeing Research & Technology took part in the event. An interesting debate was generated around the question: Are #UAS: opportunity or threat?

The other novelty of the third edition of Gradiant DemoWeek was the day dedicated to the development of Industry 4.0. For the program of this day we had an enriching presentation by Pablo Oliete Vivas, Founding Partner of Fom Asesoramiento Tecnológico and Atlas Tecnológico. This was followed by an interesting debate with representatives of the companies with which we collaborate in various Smart Industry projects such as CONGALSA, Grupo Nueva Pescanova, Financiera Maderera S.A., GKN Automotive, as well as the Axencia Galega de Innovación. A revealing dialogue that provided many keys to Sustainable Industry and the advantages of incorporating certain technological solutions for the evolution towards Industry 4.0.

In addition, this closing day also focused on the present and future challenges of AI and its integration into the productive fabric. An area in which Gradiant has the know-how of projects such as Congals4.0, Facendo4.0 or Sea2Table.

Gradiant DemoWeek, an unmissable event

The DemoWeek of Gradiant was closed with this event last October 7th. The event has become an unmissable event for companies and institutions that want to know first hand the latest advances and upcoming trends in technologies. Developments that are transversally related to connectivity, intelligence and security and that were exposed during these conferences that dealt with 5G, cybersecurity, Artificial Intelligence, unmanned aerial systems and Industry 4.0.

Operación co-financiada por la Unión Europea programa operativo Feder Galicia 2021-2027.
Unidad Mixta de Investigación para el desarrollo de diversas tecnologías altamente innovadoras en el ámbito de la gestión de identidad y ciberseguridad.
FEDER, una manera de hacer Europa.