Manufacturing SMEs and mid-caps could submit their experiment application from 8th of June until 15th of September 2020. This call was launched in Latvia, Trøndelag region in Norway, Małopolskie in Poland, Nord Vest in Romania, Jihozápad in Czezch Republic and Yugozapaden region in Bulgaria while the next BOWI project’s call for experiments in 2022 will be addressing new regions.

Out of 79 submitted proposals 24 were chosen to receive tech support from BOWI’s digital innovation hubs (DIHs) and up to € 60 000 of funding each. The aim of the experiments is to refine new digital solutions that afterwards will help the companies to reach new market potential and scale and increase their region’s digital innovation level. Companies will receive 10-month long mentoring and business support from BOWI’s DIHs and gain access to specific facilities and infrastructure available provided by the hubs. The companies and hubs will be working together to find best solutions for the technological challenges they are facing and create new, better solutions for everyone.

The applicants needed to address the following technology areas: low energy computing powering CPS, cyber-physical and embedded systems, internet of things, flexible and wearable electronics, organic and large area electronics, man/machine interfaces, advanced or high-performance computing, robotics for manufacturing, additive manufacturing technologies, modelling and simulation or CPS for manufacturing.

**In Latvia, the following applicants and experiment topics were chosen: - Cenos, An electro-hydro-metallurgical simulation application model for SMEs.

• Wingo Deposit, Bins with brains - reverse vending machine upgrade for quicker and more precise packaging processing.

• Exponential Technologies, Development of AI-based design of experiments platform for biotechnology.

• Semantic Intelligence, AI-driven life science data curation technology.

**In Poland’s Małopolskie region, the following applicants and experiment topics were chosen: - Transmission Dynamics Poland, SmartStep® - intelligent monitoring of escalators, using 4.0 technology, IIoT and AI.

• Findair spółka z ograniczoną odpowiedzialnością, AI asthma monitoring documentation system.

• Spectator, Satellite monitoring system for construction industry.

• Techmo spółka z ograniczoną odpowiedzialnością, Techmo VoiceBox for industry - voice operated solution for automatization of quality control in manufacturing.

**In Romania’s Nord-Vest region, the following applicants and experiment topics were chosen: - Rofinntech 3D, Virtual staging using Artificial Intelligence - automatic rendering of furniture layout onto images of empty rooms.

• SC Stressless, Machine learning for emotion regulation.

• RF Meters, Smart metering module development.

• Solistron, Assistant for intelligent modelling to optimize the 3D printing experience.

**In Norway’s Trøndelag region, the following applicants and experiment topics were chosen:

• Mode Sensors, Optimization of antenna design for wearable sensor-patch.

• Sensor Innovation, Intelligent solutions for leakage identification based on machine learning and sensor inputs.

• Vnnor, Artificial Intelligence for healthcare workforce planning.

• Q-Free, Sleipner - signal discriminator implemented with sub-threshold logic in a 130nm node.

**In Czech Republic’s Jihozápad region, the following applicants and experiment topics were chosen:

• JALUD Embedded, Sound event detector for outdoor real-time sound recognition.

• InnoConnect, Analytical map of the traffic flows in the Pilsen region.

• LaserTherm, Robot seam tracking module for industrial robotics.

• BestTalk, Development of BestTalk analytics & database for business, research and development evaluation.

In Bulgaria’s Yugozapaden region, the following applicants and experiment topics were chosen:

• Virtech, Active and healthy ageing by using advanced IoT-enabled software solutions.

• IKEM, innovative EV-charging solutions in Bulgaria for interoperability and connectivity of charging stations and services

• BULCHARGE.

• DTK Electronics, Body hydration monitor.

• Spesima, cloud-based digital twin platform for modelling robotised systems operating in heavy industry.

Now the chosen applicants will start their proposed technological refinement with the support of their local DIH – NAME OF YOUR DIH – and further backing from partner DIH located in digitally mature regions of Europe such as Netherlands, Germany, and Finland.

About the project The BOWI project is part of European Commission’s Smart Anything Everywhere initiative that aims to boost innovation uptake across Europe through widening and knowledge transfer between different regions and innovation hubs. The objective of the project is to support the collaboration between Digital Innovation Hubs (DIHs) across Europe to increase their capacity in supporting SMEs with digital technologies and thus strengthen regional economy and the competitiveness of the European SMEs. The BOWI project has received funding under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement no 873155.

For further information about the BOWI project and upcoming Open Calls, please visit the website www.bowi-network.eu.