The requirements on the adolescents become increasingly complex in our society.In the course of the expansion of professional, social and spacial mobility traditional influencing factors (e.g. family, church, clubs) increasingly lose meaning. The changing requirements within the working world require new skills like flexibility, mobility, permanent readiness to learn new skills and adaptability.Due to the increasing orientation at the service concepts and by the requirements of the cooperation in all fields of work , the ability to work in a team and communication skills are part of the social basic skills. Moreover, flexibility and problem solving competence are asked by the fast change of the knowledge and the markets with the adolescents. The target groups are pupils in the entire field of the secondary and vocational school up to the transition of school to education or studies. This group also contains pupils with migrant background who do not dispose of the required social skills due to their origin, which may include other social values.The international component serves the comparison of the respective, already existing attempts at the promotion of the social skills particularly in the school area as well as the transfer of the different experiences and knowledge which can enter the respective concepts of the partner regions, particularly considering the requirements on adolescents due to changed life and working conditions.The project aim is to promote the acquisition of social skills of pupils at secondary and vocational schools to support a later transition to education and profession. The cooperation of passing schools and including systems (apprenticing companies, universities) in terms of the mediation of social skills shall be strengthened. Objectives of the project:- The pupils master the basic social skills which are expected in the context of education and profession.- The number of suitable applicants on apprenticeships with an existing educational maturity will be increased.- Pupils dispose of all professionally relevant social skills, whereby the number of not communicable applicants with available school degrees is reducedprospective results of the project:- requirement determination of the including institutions (university / economy); development of a questionnaire- Definition of competences (which competences should be brought along by pupils)- Multiplier events with focus on parental work- Construction of a concept for the acquisition of the fixed competences in cooperation with schools, companies and universities- Social Skills Animations – Short comic strips regarding the selected competences for a better illustration- Development of a questionnaire for schools / universities / companies to evaluate the effects of the conceptFor the target group we expect an increased motivation by finding out and conveying the strengths and potentials of one’s own, and the emergence of an awareness concerning the meaningfulness of social skills while searching for an apprenticeship. Particularly for the group of migrants missing social competences are based on other cultural backgrounds which go along with other social values. Here, the support by institutions closes gaps which cannot always be recognised by the parental home owing to their origin.

The digital transformation and the availability of more diverse and cost-effective methods for 3D capture has led to the creation of digitised representations of parts of our public spaces, machinery and processes, so-called Digital Twins. These Digital Twins are an important basis for building advanced XR applications for cityscapes and the industrial environments. These XR applications need high-fidelity models for accurate localization, which are kept in-sync with the real world. However, currently (i) creating high-fidelity Digital Twins is costly, (ii) integrating data from heterogeneous sensors is still challenging and (iii) the update of Digital Twins requires explicit manual intervention. The vision of DIDYMOS-XR is to enable advanced, more realistic and more dynamic extended reality (XR) applications, powered through artificial intelligence. The project thus focuses on advancing technologies for creating large-scale digital twins, synchronised with the real world. DIDYMOS-XR will research and develop methods for reconstruction and mapping from heterogeneous inputs, including static and mobile sensors, AI-based data fusion, scene understanding and rendering. Digtal twin based XR applications also require means of accurately positioning in the environment, aware of the dynamics of the scene, also addresed by the project. The capture of scenes at scale, as well as using cameras and other sensor data for synchronising the digital representation, bears the risk of capturing personal and sensitive data. Hence, the technologies resulting from DIDYMOS-XR must be and will be ethical and privacy-aware by design. In order to demonstrate and validate the enabling technologies researched and developed in DIDYMOS-XR, the project will address use cases of XR applications in two domains that differ in their scale and characteristics. One is urban planning and smart mobility, the other is the collaboration with autonomous mobile robots at an industrial production facility.

Silicon Carbide based power electronics use electrical energy significantly more efficient than current silicon-based semiconductors: gains from 6% to 30% are expected depending on application. TRANSFORM will provide European downstream market players with a reliable source of SiC components and systems based on an entirely European value chain - from substrates to energy converters. Its technical excellence strengthens the global competitive position of Europe. TRANSFORM improves current SiC technologies beyond state-of-the-art to serve large emerging markets for electric power conversion in renewable energies, mobility and industry. Substrate manufacturing process innovation will establish a new global standard: smart-cut technology allows high scalability, superior performance and reliability. Substrate and equipment manufacturers plus technology providers cooperate to increase maturity of the new processes from lab demonstration to pilot lines. Device manufacturers develop and tailor processes and device design based on the new substrate process, including adaptation of planarMOS and development of new TrenchMOS technology. Performance and reliability of devices is expected to increase greatly. For exploiting the potential of SiC devices, integration technologies and system design are improved concurrently, including new copper metallization processes for higher reliability and performance, module integration for high reliability and reduction of cost, and dedicated integrated driver technologies to optimize switching modes and parallel operation in high current applications. The project will demonstrate energy savings in applications (DC/AC, DC/DC, AC/DC) in the renewable energy domain, industry and automotive. TRANSFORM contributes to European societal goals and the green economy through significantly increasing energy efficiency by providing a competitive, ready-to-industrialized technology, strengthening Europes technological sovereignty in a critical field.

EdgeAI-trust aims to develop a domain-independent architecture for decentralized edge AI along with HW/SW edge AI solutions and tools, which enable fully collaborative AI and learning at the edge. The edge AI technologies address key challenges faced by Europe's industrial and societal sectors such energy efficiency, system complexity and sustainability. EdgeAI-trust will enable large-scale edge AI solutions that enable interoperability, upgradeability, reliability, safety, security and societal acceptance with a focus on explainability and robustness. Toolchains will provide standardized interfaces for developing, optimizing and validating edge AI solutions in heterogeneous systems. The generic results will be instantiated for automated vehicles, production and agriculture, thus offering innovation potential not only in the generic HW/SW technologies and tools, but also in the three target domains. These technological innovations are complemented with business strategies and community building, ensuring the widespread uptake of the innovations in Europe. EdgeAI-trust will establish sustainable impact by building open edge AI platforms and ecosystems, with a focus on standardization, supply chain integrity, environmental impact, benchmarking frameworks, and support for open-source solutions. The consortium consists of major suppliers and OEMs encompassing a broad range of application domains, supported by leading research and academic organizations. By embracing the opportunity to specialize in Edge AI, Europe can maintain its position in the global context, especially as it aligns with decentralized and privacy-driven European policy. Furthermore, as AI is closely connected with the Green Deal, this project can provide proper solutions for environmental issues. Ultimately, the project will enable AI to be connected with other strong sectors and industries, improving the innovation process and decision-making in Europe.