GÉANT sought to stimulate the emergence of innovative solutions within its community with a new edition of its Innovation Program. Learn about some of the projects supported in 2022.
Over the years, the European community of national research and education networks (NRENs) has demonstrated its innovative capacity on numerous occasions. The services eduroam, eduMEET or eduVPN are just a few examples. The goal of GÉANT Innovation Program is precisely to support the development of innovative solutions within the European NREN network itself.
After the success of the first edition, GÉANT launched, on January 11th, the 2022 edition of the GÉANT Innovation Program (GÉANT Innovation Programme). Once again, the initiative reserves 300 thousand euros funding for specific projects carried out by its community – the European national research and education networks, as well as the entities they serve (universities, research institutes, among others).
The program is open to all areas of knowledge involved in the GÉANT community, such as IT security, education, networks, and cloud technologies. We provide more information about some of the programs supported within each area of activity. You can consult the complete list online.
Health
University of L'Aquila (Turin, Italy)
Artificial intelligence-based wireless devices for healthcare applications
This team from the University of L'Aquila seeks to respond to the growing number of diseases related to aging, offering national health systems the possibility of "changing their paradigm, reducing costs and, most importantly, offering older citizens the possibility of receiving continued and effective care."
To this end, the project seeks to develop electromechanical assistive devices that are not complex, expensive, or reusable, nor that restrict users' freedom of movement and posture. Thus, the research team at this Italian university has been working to create intelligent assessment, monitoring, and tracking systems for tele-rehabilitation, thus ensuring data that can revolutionize the paradigm of interpreting and sharing data collected by these devices.
Multimedia
Poznan Supercomputing and Networking Center (Poznan, Poland)
drawOnMeet – Share your drawings in all eduMEET session videos
eduMEET was one of the creations that emerged within the GÉANT network, consisting of a videoconferencing service that allows the creation of rooms for multiple users. The service's main objective is to provide research, education, and arts communities with an alternative to commercial solutions, with an easy-to-use and secure videoconferencing service.
A team from the Poznan Center for Networking and Supercomputing is now developing an extension for eduMEET that allows users to draw on any video stream within a video conference, highlighting important points and guiding the discussion. One of the distinguishing features of this solution is the ability for any user to draw, in real time, on the video stream shared by one of the participants. The project leaders emphasize the potential of this tool for teachers and speakers, assuring that it will be made available free of charge.
SCloud systems
Masaryk University (Brno, Czechia)
Connector for optimizing High Performance Computing connections
The main goal of this Masaryk University team is to facilitate the integration of the task scheduling system most widely used by various national research and education networks (PBSPro) into High Performance Computing tasks. This new connection, the researchers explain, will increase the possibilities for data segmentation without the need to rewrite code.
This connector will enable new ways of integrating data from multiple storage locations, as well as a simple way to perform authentication. The connector's performance will be tested in real-world scenarios, and the final product, they add, will benefit research groups looking to harness the best that High Performance Computing (HPC) has to offer.
Networks
Trinity College Dublin (Dublin, Ireland)
Education and Research Networks as a Service for Developing Countries
The Trinity College Dublin team's proposal uses the creation of a future Cape Verdean teaching and research network as a case study. It seeks to map out solutions to be implemented, with a focus on sustainability fostered by cooperation from the international NREN community. The researchers' work is based on two main pillars: developing public services and infrastructure and leveraging emerging paradigms such as overlay networking solutions, network function virtualization (NFV), and open networking.
One of the main focuses is the combination of low-cost broadband Internet access with cloud solutions that can host most network functions that operate virtually.
Education
Vytautas Magnus University (Kaunas, Lithuania)
SMART Campus – Building a campus based on digital key identifications
The goal of this Lithuanian research team is to achieve better integration and increased usability of digital services for higher education institutions. This is achieved by reusing the digital identities of students and employees to create an improved user experience. Easier access to services and improved usage data analysis are some of the specific objectives of the project, which plans to integrate access to digital services with other areas of the campus such as auditoriums, libraries, residences, sports centers and even public transport.
The end result, the researchers say, will be a SMART architecture that integrates services, access, resources, and security for the benefit of the academic community. One example offered involves creating a student residence access system with an ID card system linked to digital identity.
See the other projects supported by the GÉANT Innovation Programme.
