SMART4ALL on Embedded World Exhibition & Conference (Review & Highlights)

On 21 – 23 June, 2022, SMART4ALL participated in Embedded World Exhibition & Conference, one of the biggest electronics shows in Europe, that took place in Nuremberg. Seizing the opportunity for promoting the project, its funding tools, services and tangible results of funded experiments, SMART4ALL was represented by the University of Peloponnese (UoP), Patras Science Park (PSP) and Brandenburg University of Technology (BTU) on a booth at the exhibition and further advertised on a pitching event and on a special session organized in the context of the exhibition and conference.

For three days, SMART4ALL project coordinator, Nikolaos Voros, technical manager, Christos Antonopoulos, the Head of the Mentoring Committee, Florian Fricke and communication officer, Katerina Lamprakopoulou, enter into an exchange of information about innovative technologies and developed valuable contacts from around the world, offering solutions to startups and bigger companies searching for funding, coaching and marketplace services for digitization projects related to IoT, hardware, software and systems engineering technologies etc. More than 30 companies’ representatives visited SMART4ALL booth and where informed about SMART4ALL, through one-in-one meetings enhanced with multimedia material (videos, poster, flyers), while the SMART4ALL team visited selected booths of other exhibitors sharing SMART4ALL key facts.

In the context of the event, a pitching event for start-ups was organized on the first day and the project coordinator, Nikolaos Voros, was invited for a short pitch, presenting SMART4ALL highlights before a targeted audience, while on the 22nd of June, he was invited to HiPEAC’s special session “High Performance Embedded Architecture and Compilation” for a speech outlining SMART4ALL project, which attracted the audience’s interest and contributed to the joint development of ideas and concepts that shape the future.

Furthermore, SMART4ALL technical manager, Christos Antonopoulos, chaired two sessions pertinent to the SMART4ALL objectives entitled “IoT Use Cases” and “Low-power wide-area networks” where very interesting presentations and follow up discussions and QnAs sessions were organized.

Apart from the constructive communication developed in the physical exhibition, which was attended by more than 720 exhibitors from 39 countries and around 18,000 visitors from 76 countries, SMART4ALL was presented via a digital profile page on Embedded World’s website.

Moreover, on the occasion of the International Women in Engineering Day (23rd June), PSP representative joined forces with Red Pitaya’s representative, Nina Jagodic – also present on the Embedded World on a separate stand – to promote the SMART4Women network and its objective for female professionals’ and engineering students’ empowerment, through a short video dedicated to this purpose.

Exceptional moments of the three-day exhibition were Axel Sikora’s, Chairman of the Embedded World Exhibition, visits to SMART4ALL booth during a guided press tour at first, asking for prof. Voros’ remarks and afterwards at an individual basis, to exchange views with UoP’s representatives.