For a Human-Centered AI

Dedagroup and Fondazione Bruno Kessler create the co-innovation lab

January 9, 2017

Technology, new standards and best practices for the interoperability of data and services to support digital transformation.

Dedagroup and Fondazione Bruno Kessler have combined resources and expertise to give life to Co-Innovation Lab, a joint initiative dedicated to developing standards and best practices for the openness and interoperability of data and services (Open Data, Open Services) and to develop new generation digital applications.

The Co-Innovation Lab aims to boost change in companies, organizations, institutions, providing them with an approach and a set of tools with which to embrace the digital transformation. In a scenario that sees ever multiplying points of contact and interaction channels between people and organizations, the interoperability of data and services is becoming increasingly important, as the boundaries between the various information and operational souls within an organization and external sources will fade due to the need to generate new value.

The Co-Innovation Lab will focus simultaneously both on innovating methodologies and technologies with which to implement the digital change and on human resources with which to achieve this transformation: the Laboratory will in fact also be a place of selection, training and development of new talent and skills. The goal is to create a path that feeds a pool of resources that starts after graduation to get up to placement in a company, thus ensuring to the selected talents on-the-job training on strategic issues and research projects developed in the Laboratory.

The Laboratory will start its activities in October 2016; it will select and initially employ four new resources, which will be increased progressively based on the projects that will have been initiated, and will mainly work at FBK but also at Dedagroup.

“We are proud to partner with an institution like Fondazione Bruno Kessler that promotes a concept of research and innovation always in the concrete service of the community,” said Gianni Camisa, CEO of Dedagroup. “An approach that is consistent with our operating model, that of the Digital Hub, created to integrate and harmonize all our digital transformation skills, so that they can be put at the service of customers.”

“With the new settlement of Dedagroup at FBK,” said Fondazione Bruno Kessler’s President, Francesco Profumo, “a new open innovation model is being started in the Trentino area. FBK not only makes available for Dedagroup spaces in their buildings in Povo, but it creates an environment of co-working, where researchers and innovators of the Foundation and of the company will share knowledge, experiences and labs. FBK will bring the results of their research, their wealth of innovation and people with expertise in research and innovation developed over the years. The company will bring its experience in terms of strategic marketing and people with skills in te rms of project management and engineering. All this will serve the purpose of developing new digital processing tools for businesses, organizations and institutions. The goal is to create a synergy between FBK and Dedagroup, and to develop new industrial products, very competitive in terms of technology and price and with the lowest possible time to market. A new history of Trentino, the Italian Silicon Valley, which will create jobs and opportunities for development. ”

Dedagroup is already developing its own products based on this new approach. Take the case of “CA.RE. Change Index” for the Public Administration, the instrument with which Dedagroup supports the evolution of the national system by helping the PA understand to what extent they are digital today, and to increase their level of digitalization of tomorrow. CA.RE. It was in fact created with the aim to measure the degree of digital evolution of an organization and is divided in four different areas: Digital competence, digital services, digital government, digital Transparency.

CA.RE. differs from other entities and businesses digitization indexes because it is based on an in-depth analysis of the EU DESI – Digital Economy and Society Index – (https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/desi). The four dimensions analyzed by CA.RE. expand the DESI elaboration locally and, with respect to the areas analyzed by DESI, only leave out the measurement of the connectivity dimension that is part of a separate plan of the President of the Council of Ministers’ Office, the “Strategia per la Banda Ultra Larga”, or Strategy for Ultra Wide Band”. The first CA.RE. data will be made available during the presentation of results of the Osservatorio Agenda Digitale 2016.

A practical approach shared also by Fondazione Bruno Kessler, whose ICT Center’s research activities are structured in High Impact Initiatives (HII) that are intended to have an impact on the market and on society in a proactive and systematic manner, through strong alliances with companies. One of these HII operates precisely in the Smart Community industry, central to the issues of the co-lab and is involved in open services, open data and applications for the P.A. and citizens.