Despite rising investments on BigData, AI and IoT in finance/insurance, financial and insurance organisations are still facing many challenges (i.e. data “silos”, regulatory complexity, lack of testbed resources) in realizing the full potential of these technologies. INFINITECH is a joint effort of global leaders in ICT and finance towards lowering the barriers for BigData/IoT/AI driven innovation, boosting regulatory compliance and stimulating additional investments. It will provide: 1)Novel BigData/IoT technologies for seamless management and querying of all types of data (e.g., OLAP/OLTP, structured/unstructured/semi-structured, data streaming & data at rest), interoperable data analytics, blockchain-based data sharing, real-time analytics, as well as libraries of advanced AI algorithms. 2)Regulatory tools incorporating various data governance capabilities (e.g. anonymization, eIDAS integration) and facilitating compliance to regulations (e.g., PSD2, 4AMLD, MIFiD II). 3)Nine novel and configurable testbeds & sandboxes, each one offering Open APIs and other resources for validating autonomous and personalized solutions, including a unique collection of data assets for finance/insurance. The project’s results will be validated in the scope of 14 high impact pilots providing complete coverage of the sectors, including Know Your Customer (KYC), customer analytics, personalized portfolio management, credit risk assessment, preventive financial crime analysis, fraud anticipation, usage based insurance, agro-insurance and more. INFINITECH will establish a market platform that will provide access to the project’s solutions, along with a Virtualized Digital Innovation Hub (VDIH) that will support innovators (FinTech/InsuranceTech) in their BigData/AI/IoT endeavors. Based on their strong footprint in the European digital finance ecosystem, the partners will engage stakeholders from all EU-28 countries, making INFINITECH synonymous to disruptive BigData/AI innovation in the target sectors.

The infrastructures of the financial sector are nowadays more critical, sophisticated and interconnected than ever before, which makes them increasingly vulnerable to security attacks. Despite increased security, most security measures remain fragmented and static i.e. inappropriate for confronting sophisticated and asymmetric attacks. FINSEC is a joint effort of prominent stakeholders in the financial sector and global leaders in physical & IT security, towards introducing a novel standards-based reference architecture (RA) for integrated (cyber & physical) security. The RA will enable timely preparation against attacks, while at the same time facilitating stakeholders’ collaboration for risk assessment/mitigation in the financial supply chain, as a means of confronting complex threats and their cascading effects. FINSEC will provide a mature implementation of the RA, based on the enhancement and integration of novel solutions of the partners (eg., Anomaly Detection, AI CCTV Analytics, Risk Assessment Engines, Collaborative Risk Analysis & Management, Compliance), which will be bundled in a toolbox. The RA implementation and the toolbox will be validated through realistic pilots involving stakeholders in the identification, assessment and mitigation of threats. The five pilots involve high-impact scenarios including SWIFT network protection, buildings and ATM networks security, peer-to-peer payments network protection, risk assessment for insurance purposes and securing financial SMEs. The pilots will engage >=500 security & finance experts, while providing a representative coverage of the financial services industry (ie. banking, capital management, insurance, card & P2P payments), which is a sound basis for FINSEC’s broader impact. Towards maximum impact, FINSEC will establish an ecosystem of security solutions for the financial sector, which will be supported by the partners’ dense network of sales, marketing, standardization and regulation channels worldwide.

BEACONING sets a forefront in multifaceted education technologies through large-scale piloting of a digital learning platform that blend physical and digital spaces. As innovation action strategies, pilots combine opportunities for new ICTs in multiple ways that merge learning acquired in formal, non-formal and informal means, developing the skills for today’s abled and disabled learners and workforce. The BEACONING platform will be a ubiquitous solution that exploits advances in user experience design, mobile communication, location-based and context aware systems, procedural content generation, pedagogy-driven gamification, learning analytics and cloud technology though innovative integration towards a blended learning space. The BEACONING demonstrator will facilitate, assess and author gamified learning activities, integrating existing educational tools and services of the participating organisations. Focusing on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics), the cross-subject approach embedded in a Problem-Based Learning model will contextualise learning within real world problem solving and applications. The role of learners is amplified in the process of filtering and connecting concepts framed under practical, investigative and exploratory scenarios. Large-scale pilots will validate and inform the development of the BEACONING ecosystem that democratises learning across and among fully abled and those with mild to moderate physical and mental impairments (age 15 to 24), undergoing general and vocational training. BEACONING anticipates the benefits of making cross-subject matter more understandable, fostering the application of subject specialism to other domains. The pilot substantiates the technical and economic viability and the impact of the innovative platform to strategise market adoption and replication. By integrating experiences in a highly engaging, contextualized and personalised manner, learning can beyond the barriers of space and time.