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Dr. Jama Nateqi is one of the dynamos behind Symptoma: a world-leading artificial intelligence (AI) symptom checker with a +95% accuracy rate for over 20,000 diseases. We spoke to him to find out how he succeeded in realising a lifelong ambition to reduce misdiagnoses where so many other companies have failed.

Misdiagnosis could become a thing of the past. With advanced artificial intelligence (AI), 15 years of medical research and perseverance, Symptoma, a world-leading accurate online symptom checker, is reducing one of medicine’s biggest blind spots. One in seven diagnoses are incorrect and eliminating this problem could save 1.5 million lives every year.

New relationship will offer opportunities for SMEs to establish partnerships with corporate venturing teams.

Companies are inventing more and more devices to make our lives easier: vending machines that order fresh drinks from suppliers when they run out, sports watches measuring our heart rate and ovens and lights that can be turned off even when you’ve left your home. Eurostars project RESCURE holds the key to keeping your data on these devices secure.

A secure web platform, capable of integrating data from different kinds of sensory and connectivity technologies, can help businesses keep better track of their assets and personnel. The platform could lead to new operational efficiencies and cost savings.

But challenges bring with them opportunity. At Eureka, we’ve reinforced our commitment to supporting you, entrepreneurs, whose great innovations make a positive societal impact and strengthen our economies.

Why Eurostars is an essential component of Horizon Europe.

Insights

1. Horizon Europe emphasises the need to reinforce support to SMEs for the research and development of emerging and breakthrough innovations. There is a need for policies directly targeting SMEs and that aim to close the innovation gap in the European Union.
2. The Innovative SMEs Partnership delivers a unique 1:3 leverage cash effect on EU funds. The total leverage effect, including private and public funds, is 1:7.
3. The new strategy for the European Research Area (ERA) recommends member countries allocate a target of 5% R&D expenditure to international funding programmes[1].
4. The final allocation of funds from Horizon Europe to the Innovative SMEs Partnership should be proportionate to the budgetary situation of the Framework Programme.
5. Eureka considers an allocation of 300 M€ to the Innovative SMEs Partnership to be an optimal balance between diversity of European interests and sharing the burden of budget cuts, while ensuring the viability of a funding programme with a proven track record for creating jobs and growth.

Offshore energy platforms take a pounding from waves, wind and rain, collisions and the harsh daily grind of operations. Digital Guardian, a new predictive modelling technology, has been designed to optimise these complex and costly assets in real-time. It analyses design, operations and maintenance to boost offshore energy platform efficiency, safety and longevity.

By applying machine learning to optical character recognition (OCR) technology, a Eurostars project has significantly improved the digitisation of old newspapers and historic manuscripts. The solution could be a godsend for universities, libraries and museums keen to make important archived documents public, as well as legal services interested in digitising old contracts.

Animal feed is a critical element of the food chain, impacting both animal health and food safety. The Eurostars CoRouge project has helped a small company gain approval for a new copper feed additive that can improve the health of lifestock whilst fully respecting European Union rules. The success of the project has led to further research into the health and environmental benefits of a unique source of copper in feed.

The world’s seas and oceans contain almost unlimited, inexhaustible power. Along the rugged coastlines and waterways of the United Kingdom and Ireland for example, tidal surges could provide plentiful clean renewable energy if harnessed in a cost-effective manner. The Eurostars SAFE COAST project has provided some much-needed momentum (and a wake-up call to governments) by demonstrating that affordable renewable energy can be combined with robust flood defence.

Belgium is an unusually complex Eureka country. Not only is R&D organised at federal level, but there are also three communities and three distinct cultural regions. Those regions are competent in applied industrial research and have their own budgets.

This diversity is also a source of possibilities, since each region can launch calls for projects and new funding opportunities individually.

Oscar Chabrera has one of the hardest jobs at any start-up company: raising money to fund research and development. As co-founder and project coordinator at Spanish company Vilynx, Chabrera tells us why he became an entrepreneur and how to finance innovation.

A Eurostars project partnership has blossomed into an innovative startup, which aims to make the pre-clinical testing of drugs for immune response risks affordable and straightforward. This could help open up the pharmaceutical market to smaller European pharma firms, and ensure that medicines that reach the market do not have unexpected side effects.

Knowing when wind turbines are not operating optimally and being able to forecast when a failure is imminent could save the wind energy sector millions of euros in preventive repair work. A Eurostars project has developed a sensory-based platform, capable of collecting and analysing enormous amounts of data, to find patterns that show abnormal behaviour. The success of the project has been so great that the team is now looking to apply their innovation to other sectors where structural health is critical.

A web tool that combines geospatial information with business intelligence can help companies make more informed decisions and enable public authorities to better allocate and manage resources. The software, developed through an innovative Eurostars project GEO Key, is already being used by French authorities, and we expect it to be sold globally.