ITEA PO Days 2024 and exhibition in Antwerp

In a word, our first ITEA PO Days were exceptional. Mobile Innovations’ experience in Antwerp exceeded our expectations as we gained a tremendous amount of useful knowledge about funding and growing AI projects like ours. We benefited from the start – seeing the awards for last year's participants, meeting peers and experts, and learning how to work with consortia for successful project funding. We accrued tremendous benefits by meeting many other passionate fellow ITEA Community AI members – researchers, educators, entrepreneurs, and trade experts – in this very well-organised (and picturesque!) setting. I look forward to our next ITEA experience!

The ITEA PO Days exceeded our expectations! It was a remarkably well-organised event that promoted European innovation and offered outstanding opportunities for SMEs. The B2B sessions were well-organised, providing extremely valuable connections with large industry and research institutions from across the world. I am sure we will work together with many of our new partners beyond the ITEA format. Also, the Newcomers workshop is a must-attend for all ITEA newbies. It provides detailed insights and focuses the attention on what really matters in order to be successful at ITEA. We are excited about the valuable partnerships we've established with industry leaders and research institutions worldwide. As we face the immense challenge of an aging population, we are committed to tackling the issues of social isolation among the elderly and rising care costs through cutting-edge technologies together with our newly formed consortium at ITEA4.

I’m always looking forward to the ITEA PO Days. It’s a unique place to interact with so many fine and innovation-minded people eager to make the world a better place through meaningful collaborative R&D projects. Witnessing the enthusiasm and commitment of so many people to create the next round of ITEA projects really makes me happy. It is no small feat to transform a plethora of seemingly unrelated project ideas into successful innovation projects. Yet every year, this ‘magic’ takes place thanks to the hard work of the participants and with the relentless support of the ITEA Office.

The ITEA event was an incredible experience for me, offering a perfect platform to showcase our work in the EXPLAIN project during the ‘Highlights of the ITEA Impact’ exhibition and exchange ideas with a diverse range of researchers and industry experts. The networking opportunities were invaluable, particularly gaining insights from the ITEA Office regarding our project. I was truly inspired by the technology trends presented by the ITEA Chairman and the bottom-up approach that helps researchers to quickly pitch ideas and find partners in an efficient way. It was a very well-organised event and I enjoyed the whole experience!

The 2024 ITEA PO Days in Antwerp have been absolutely incredible and vibrant for me. A gathering of a ‘family’ with over 300 members to celebrate innovation and future advances in the domain of digitalisation and software. More proposals than ever were presented and are a sign of how engaged the community is in ITEA. We also saw great results from running and concluded projects that could all demonstrate the impact and the difference that the projects are making. Industry’s investments, supported by public funding, really are achieving the desired socio-economic impact, which has been at the heart of ITEA for more than 25 years now. I am therefore very much looking forward to the outcome of this year’s ITEA Call!