5GMed5GMediaHUB aims to help EU to achieve the goal of becoming a world leader in 5G, by accelerating the testing and validation of innovative 5G-empowered media applications and NetApps from 3rd party experimenters and NetApps developers, through an open, integrated and fully featured Experimentation Facility. This will significantly reduce not only the service creation lifecycle but also the time to market barrier, thus providing such actors that are primarily from SMEs, with a competitive advantage against their rivals outside EU. In particular, 5GMediaHUB will build and operate an elastic, secure and trusted multi-tenant service execution and NetApps development environment based on an open cloud-based architecture and APIs, by developing and integrating a testing and validation system with two existing well-established 5G testbeds (by CTTC and Telenor) for enabling the fast prototyping, testing and validation of novel 5G services and NetApps. 5GMediaHUB will offer: (i) a DevOps environment for Testing as a Service; (ii) a rich set of Experimentation Tools that offer scheduling, validation, verification, analytics and QoS/QoE monitoring mechanisms; (iii) A set of re-usable vertical-specific and vertical-agnostic NetApps with easy to use APIs that can be consumed by application developers, reducing the complexity and risk of integrations and operations; (iv) a re-usable open-source NetApps Repository; (v) an umbrella cross-domain service orchestrator to deliver cross-domain orchestration of NetApps; (vi) an innovative security framework offering software defined perimeter protection and isolation of NetApps; (vii) incremental validation capabilities of the Experimental Facility evidenced through 3 novel media use cases with 2 scenarios each, over 3GPP R.16 and R.17 5G testbed releases. Our 17-partner consortium (9 SMEs) from 9 countries has extremely rich 5G-PPP experience, since 13 partners have participated in previous 5G-PPP projects and in several 5G-PPP WGs.

The SpeechXRays project will develop and test in real-life environments a user recognition platform based on voice acoustics analysis and audio-visual identity verification. SpeechXRays will outperform state-of-the-art solutions in the following areas: · Security: high accuracy solution (cross over accuracy of 1/100 i.e. twice the commercial voice/face solutions) · Privacy: biometric data stored in the device (or in a private cloud under the responsibility of the data subject) · Usability: text-independent speaker identification (no pass phrase), low sensitivity to surrounding noise · Cost-efficiency: use of standard embedded microphone and cameras (smartphones, laptops). The project will combine and pilot two proven techniques: acoustic driven voice recognition (using acoustic rather than statistical only models) and multi-channel biometrics incorporating dynamic face recognition (machine vision analysis of speech, lip movement and face). The vision of the SpeechXRays project is to provide a solution combining the convenience and cost-effectiveness of voice biometrics, achieving better accuracies by combining it with video, and bringing superior anti-spoofing capabilities. The technology will be deployed on 2000 users in 3 pilots: a workforce use case, an eHealth use case and a consumer use case. The project lasts 36 months and is coordinated by world leader in digital security solutions for the mobility space.

AgRibot is a groundbreaking project aimed at advancing robotics as well as augmented and extended reality (AR/XR) technologies within the agricultural sector. The project’s overarching goal is to achieve a range of critical impacts including: improving working conditions, reducing environmental footprint, addressing workforce shortages, and enhancing overall sustainability and competitiveness. In alignment with strategic initiatives such as the Farm-to-Fork Strategy, the Common Agricultural Policy post-2022, and the broader ambition of embracing the Digital Age, AgRibot is poised to drive a transformative shift toward a fair, safer, and resilient agriculture sector.

In order to support the fight against radicalization and thus prevent future terrorist attacks from taking place, the CounteR project will bring data from disperse sources into an analysis and early alert platform for data mining and prediction of critical areas (e.g. communities), aiming to be a frontline community policing tool which looks at the community and its related risk factors rather than targeting and surveilling individuals. This is a key point in ensuring the privacy of citizens and the protection of their personal data, an issue that has been of great concern to policymakers and LEAs alike, who must balance the important work they do with the need to protect innocent individuals. The system will incorporate state of the art NLP technologies combined with expert knowledge into the psychology of radicalization processes to provide a complete solution for LEAs to understand the when, where and why of radicalization in the community to help combat propaganda, fundraising, recruitment and mobilization, networking, information sharing, planning/coordination, data manipulation and misinformation. Information gained by the system will also allow LEAs and other community stakeholders to implement prevention programs and employ counternarratives rather than relying solely on surveillance. The CounteR solution will cover a wide range of information sources, both dynamic (e.g. social media) and offline (e.g. open data sources) and combined with world-renowned expertise in radicalization processes and their psychology. The CounteR solution will allow LEAs to take coordinated action in real-time while also preserving the privacy of citizens, as the system will target “hotspots” of radicalization rather than individuals. In addition, the CounteR solution will support information sharing between European LEAs and foster collaboration between diverse agencies by providing an open platform which prioritizes harmonized information formats.

The European energy system is undergoing a significant transformation: decarbonization, security of supply, deployment of renewables and their integration into the market, generating significant opportunities and challenges for energy stakeholders. Despite all energy efficiency efforts, overall demand for decarbonized electricity is set to be significantly higher in 2050 than today due to the decarbonization of the heating, cooling, transport and many industrial sectors, which can only be achieved via efficient and smart electrification. Hydropower is a key technology in supporting the European pathway to a decarbonized energy system and to achieve global leadership in renewable energy generation. It consists a renewable and highly sustainable electricity resource and can supply the European power system with stability and valuable flexibility. In addition, hydropower reduces EU’s dependency on fossil imports and renders multiple extra benefits for society in the river basins such as support to irrigation, water supply and flood control. The D-HYDROFLEX project will advance excellence in research on digital technology for hydropower paving the way towards more efficient, more sustainable, and more competitive hydropower plants in modern power markets. D-HYDROFLEX will develop a toolkit for digitally ‘renovating’ the existing hydroelectric power plants based on sensors, digital twins, AI algorithms, hybridization modelling (power-to-hydrogen), cloud-edge computing and image processing. The core pillars of the project will be: (i) digitalization, (i.e., digital twins for hydro dams and machinery, weather and flow forecasts, cyber-resilience), (ii) flexibility, (i.e., coordination with hydrogen, storage and VPP operation) and (iii) sustainability, (i.e., biodiversity environmental issues). Validation will take place in real hydro plants of EDF (France), TEE (Poland), PPC (Greece), TASGA (Spain) and INTEX (Romania), covering different geographical areas of Europe.