Learning Expedition 2019

Students meet the experts of two companies, the greek smart city and a research institute.

Among the visions of AIMove’s pedagogical program is the interdisciplinary approach of the today’s AI engineer, and thus, a summer school abroad is destined after the course training. The first edition has been successfully accomplished within the context of a learning expedition. Destination was northern Greece: AIMove team tarried at Thessaloniki city which was the point of reference, and outings were organised in Komotini and Trikala city.

Students, currently in the midst of their internships, left for one week their companies and research labs, in order to visit others of the related fields of cutting-edge intelligent manufacturing and research, get aware of their challenges, opportunities and how they get to meet them, and respectively share with them their ongoing experience in renowned institutions in Europe, as part of AIMove’s professional mission.

The concept behind the learning expedition is the reciprocal exchange of knowledge and experience: a participatory approach, where both the visited participant and the students present their actual work of study. During all-day sessions, students and experts constructed a dialogue and impromptu discussions were coming up.

A mighty roster of visits was organised, including visits at one research center, two small&medium sized companies and the first emerging greek smart city of Trikala.

Themes:

#Artificial Intelligence

#Industry 4.0

#Personalised healthcare

#How to prepare a non data-centric SME to meet the challenges of Industry 4.0 

#Reinventing business models for manufacturing practice

Let’s leave space to the students express their impressions :

 » The week’s agenda was broad and dense.  »

 » This postmasters’ degree is a combination of practice and theory. All this was concluded to a learning expedition in Greece with the option to discover for real all the technology and knowledge that we had studied during this whole year.  »

 » We were introduced in CERTH’s research activities as part of European projects in human-centred AI such as Parkinson prevention and treatment where we saw the benefits of implementing AI for human well-being.  »

 »  We visited the lab of biomechanics at the Democritus University of Thrace and the Tribe-wearables start-up in Komotini city where we had very interesting and fruitful discussions around the remaining scientific questions regarding the function of the human body and the disruptive potential of wearables.  » 

 » Meet the TribeWearables’s CEO with the main concept/product of connected clothes and their studies of the muscles was a great experience in terms of sharing knowledge and feeling about a topic that will become top topic in the next few years. How can we use our body data in order to improve our gestures and movements?   » 

 » On the second day, we visited a biomechanics laboratory and we learnt how they use sensors to measure the muscle forces of the athletes. Furthermore, we met the founder of the startup company, Tribewearables, who produces washable clothes with embedded muscle sensors.  » 

 »Next stop was Trikala city, a charming Greek town that is enthusiastically involved in the digital transformation of cities as well as in the autonomous public transportation. There, we had the opportunity to discuss with the mayor about the vision of the municipality to deploy new technologies such as IoT for public benefit purposes. ‘

 » We had the great honour to discover E-trikala S.A., a company formed within the Municipality of Trikala city, with the only aim of improving their residents’ life. Trikala a concentration of technology and the first city in the world to implement a bus without a driver directly in their street.  »

 »Trikala is the smart city of Greece. There, we learned how a small city in the inland of Greece became the center of innovation in Europe by applying artificial intelligence and IoTs. Autonomous buses, smart traffic lights, smart farms and smart parking are some innovative ideas that became a reality to this city.  »

 » The climax of this summer school was an intense two-day seminar around the concept of Industry 4.0 in collaboration with CHIMAR, a Greek SME with long tradition and global leadership in industrial resins. The seminar’s goal was dual; on the one hand to gain insight into the actual industrial challenges regarding productivity and innovation and on the other hand to take the role of the consultant and come up with an AI based solution to these challenges. The visit in the company’s labs gave us the opportunity to get acquainted with the different stages of the resin production as well as the digital transformation and automation of the production line. The last day was dedicated to the demonstration of our collective work to the company’s management and to a round table were we had the chance to exchange thoughts and ideas about the AI based transformation of the Industry.  »

 » The last two days of our learning expedition had the objective to let us act as consultants of  a CHIMAR chemical company and imagine with them the industry 4.0 of the chemical laboratory. We had to observe and collect their need,  propose a solution using IoTs, artificial intelligence, and build a fully architecture in order to show the possibility of using technology of 4.0 industries.   »

 » On every visit, we had the chance to present our thesis projects to the crowd as a pitch presentation. Overall, this learning expedition was very educative, creative and interesting and I hope AIMove masters’ program will continue to organize summer schools like this in the future.  »

 » Afterall, this learning expedition was a great experience, in terms of meeting with a wide panel of people and profiles, but also in terms of sharing experience.  » 

 » It was with great pleasure that I participated in the very first summer school of AIMove as part of the first student promotion. A lot of care had been taken so that an all-round approach was followed in how AI and movement can transform traditional and emerging industrial sectors. More importantly, I appreciated the fact that apart from the learning aspect of this field trip, a key element of this week was our chance to demonstrate our ability to conceive and contribute to this transformation as future leaders of Industry 4.0.  »