FOI to start with newly approved projects soon

With the already undergoing project titled "Full STEAM Ahead – Science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics in the 2nd elementary school Varaždin", two new projects are starting soon: “CUTIE – Competencies for University Teaching & Institutional Empowerment”, “Digital transformation of Central Croatia and Northern Adriatic through JURK EDIH” and “ARC II - Awareness Raising Campaign for SMEs II”.

Namely, Full STEAM Ahead – Science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics in the 2nd elementary school Varaždin, financed by the EEA Financial Mechanism and the Norwegian Financial Mechanism, has the main objective of establishing a STEAM concept in the 2nd elementary school Varaždin (which is the project coordinator) through the purchase of equipment and equipping four specialized classrooms with the goal of developing a non-compulsory STEAM curriculum and achieving digital transformation. Through this project worth 3.261.053,15 HRK, human resources are going to be strengthened through teacher education at FOI as well as implementing a plethora of STEAM activities for students and the public in order to raise awareness about the importance of STEAM competencies. Along with the Norwegian partners, the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at FOI is also included in the project, with Assoc. Prof. Markus Schatten, Ph.D. being the FOI project team leader and the Head of the AI Laboratory which is going to be directly involved in the project.

Moreover, the project CUTIE – “Competencies for University Teaching & Institutional Empowerment” project, financed by Erasmus+ programme on the basis of KA220-HED call – cooperation partnerships in higher education, has the objective of developing approaches to improve and advance digital competencies to teach in higher education which is going to be implemented on institutional levels as well as the levels of departments in order to strengthen the systemic impact. Through this project, with the total budget of 400.000,00 EUR, the competencies of digital teaching are going to be implemented in the wider institutional perspective by expanding the availability to other participants, especially those who can have an impact on the politics and practices, with the end goal being the implementation on other European institutions. The project coordinator is the Akureyri University from Iceland, and the leader of the FOI project team is Assoc. Prof. Igor Balaban, Ph.D., Vice-Dean for Science, Projects and International Cooperation at the Faculty of Organization and Informatics.

The Digital Europe programme is the source of financing the “Digital transformation of Central Croatia and Northern Adriatic through JURK EDIH” project which gathers a significant number of partners among which there is also the FOI project team led by Assoc. Prof. Mario Konecki, Ph. D., while the project coordinator is the Regional coordinator of the Sisak-Moslavina County. The main objective of this 2.370.768,98 EUR worth project is to establish a European digital centre for innovations which is going to provide support to enterprises and other stakeholders in the processes of digital transformation. EDIH JURK is going to provide services in the key fields of the Digital Europe 2021-2027 programme: artificial intelligence, cyber security and/or high-performance computing. EDIH JURK is going to base its work on artificial intelligence with a focus on videogame development and gamification as well as Blockchain and IoT industry. The main goal of the project is to promote digital transformation and improve digital skills in SMEs and public authorities. The project promotes good management capacity, digital transition and human resources management. The project activities of the FOI’s project team will be realized in the Laboratory for Design of Program Interfaces, Internet Services and Videogames.

Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values, a European Commission programme, is the source of financing for the ARC II – “Awareness Raising Campaign for SMEs II” project. This project, whose coordinator is the Croatian Personal Data Protection Agency (AZOP), starts on the 2nd Sep 2022 and is worth 360.514,43 EUR. FOI’s project team is going to be led by Assoc. Prof. Renata Mekovec, Ph. D. The main objective is to develop an open-source code web tool Olivia which is to be used in order to implement the GDPR policies and hence help SMEs to comply with those policies as well as raise awareness among SMEs about the importance of the GDPR compliance.