InnoHPC - REPORT FROM INNOHPC TRAINING - CAPACITY BUILDING FOR HPC PROVIDERS AND SMES IN MONTENEGRO

25-07-2018

InnoHPC training: Capacity building for HPC providers and SMEs took place on June 27 – 28th, 2018, in Hotel Aurel in Podgorica, Montenegro. It was dedicated to developing HPC capacity building tools and programmes for SMEs (automotive and electronic) and HPC providers in order to deliver functionality of the InnoHPC Lab after the end of the InnoHPC project. Two separated events happened, occurring in parallel (one for SMEs and one for HPC providers) with additional value on mingling possibility.

1st day:

1st part of day one has been dedicated to presenting the InnoHPC project and then presenting the baseline analyses data for Montenegro on neighbouring countries. At this stage there was little feedback from the group, except to confirm the findings of the baseline analyses, and state that HPC technology is at very low level in Montenegro, that it is not used even by large companies, and that awareness on potential for its usage is on low level as well. Since some of the stakeholders present come from academia (both students and professors), the feedback from this sector has been that strategies in Montenegro do not prioritize HPC nor specifically mention this technology, and consequently this subject is not included in curriculum of any of the IT faculties in Montenegro.

After this part, there were presentations on Technology Transfer Process and Intellectual Property rights, which led to Case study from Romania, which explained the issues in technology transfer process from academia to SMEs. In Montenegro, as stakeholders confirmed, technology transfer centers do not exist in academia, and discussion was held about the best ways to transfer the knowledge and which communication channels to use.

The second case study focused on educational sector in Montenegro, and particular activities that were dedicated to involving SMEs that could benefit from the knowledge and research conducted at university.

Worksheets on technology transfer process and industrial position was a group exercise. The participants have been split into two groups to conduct this exercise. Worksheets on HPC usage, patents and VR and Worksheets on sharing experience was also done in two groups.

       

2nd day:

On the second day of capacity building activity the team was joined by professor Jože Duhovnik from Ljubljana University, who presented success stories in HPC from 4 different sectors. This presentation was extremely well accepted by the stakeholders, who commented that the examples provided have really shown how HPC is applied in different fields. Mr. Duhovnik also presented HPC application in mechanical engineering, and has shown how HPC has grown and how it actually began to be used in Slovenia, demonstrating government policies, academia roles and transfer of technology to business sector. LECAD example has been presented.

UVT presented case study on organising Info Days in Romania, and demonstrated why fine-tuning of the approaches was necessary in order to engage business sector in a more meaningful and successful manner. That presentation was a good introduction to the next session – business and academic communication.

The rest of the second day was dedicated to open discussion between the stakeholders and presenters, where variety of topics have been touched. Most important ones have been:

  • The importance of policies in introducing HPC technology in academia and business world – comparative examples have been used from Montenegro, Romania and Slovenia.
  • Role of universities in building the workforce in HPC sector – again Romania and Slovenia examples were compared to Montenegro
  • Awareness raising and how it can be done to ensure wider knowledge of HPC and potential it brings
  • Particular models of application of HPC in Montenegro have been discussed with specific focus on Hydrometeorology Institute of Montenegro.

Given that in Montenegro HPC technology is not used and awareness of it is at low level, stakeholders have had an extensive discussion on how this situation can be changed and which approaches should be taken.

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Programme co-funded by European Union funds (ERDF, IPA, ENI)