Intelligent Data Science and Artificial Intelligence Research Center (IDEAI-UPC)

IDEAI research center is based on a 200-square-meter office facility equipped with dedicated working desks and a creative corner. Additionally, the venue offers an ample space for working meetings and collaborative activities. Furthermore, there is a dedicated video call room.

https://ideai.upc.edu/en

IDEAI is able to provide different types of services:

Research, development, prototyping and testing studies including different kinds of AI methodologies on the following areas:

• Digital Society: This is a hot topic IDEAI wants to lead in Catalonia and Europe. IDEAI is going to develop e-recruitment and online for institutions, markets, trade and education, promoting the digital society, its access and its use, as a basic theme. This includes, in particular, the dissemination of current topics such as artificial intelligence, cognitive paradigms and robotics in society. IDEAI definitely wants to be at the forefront of this disruption in Catalonia. Smart Economy, Business and Smart Cities are closely related application areas in which we are very active: segmenting customers, predicting sales, detecting fraud, etc.

• Industry 4.0: Manufacturing production by integrating intelligent techniques, big data and connection to the internet of things is set to facilitate decision-making for streamlining processes and reducing operating costs. Machine learning techniques (cognitive computing) and data science methods make it possible to exploit large amounts of historical data (big data) collected in the manufacturing industry, using many sensors and signals (internet of things), and revealing interesting patterns of useful knowledge for intelligent decision support and optimisation of various manufacturing tasks. Examples of the outcomes may be intelligent configuration of manufacturing machines for different products, intelligent maintenance strategies to avoid machine breakdowns, intelligent prevention systems to detect failures in production, or customisable recommendation systems for production planning.

• Health, Wellness and Inclusion: In addition to the traditional approaches where the main focus was on symptomatic treatments, new approaches in healthcare are becoming important fields: personalised medicine, patient-centred medicine and wellness and inclusion. In this new scenario, ICT technologies and especially Artificial Intelligence and Data Science play a central role. IDEAI's Health, Wellness and Social Inclusion area is in charge of all kinds of projects with the aim of contributing to a better understanding of the factors that improve and develop health, wellness and social inclusion in terms of efficiency, adaptability or reactivity of the systems. A group of IDEAI researchers with a long experience in different areas of health, from mental health to rehabilitation, including healthy lifestyles or diagnostics, works to expand relevant knowledge from data, images, text or videos to better understand the underlying complexity of health, wellbeing or inclusion. and contributes to building assistive technologies, intelligent recommender or predictive models on the ground.

• Education: This area aims at projects that promote mobility and entrepreneurship among our young researchers with actions such as: defining educational pathways from bachelor to master and industrial doctorate, increasing participation in summer schools and dissemination of social events; making the most of learning by developing and assigning professional mentors from the RRI board.

• Economy: This area of IDEAI plays an important role in the transition towards a knowledge-based economy and society. Smart Economy, Business and Smart Cities are closely related application areas in which IDEAI is very active, from customer segmentation to sales forecasting, fraud detection or data-driven models and decision support systems.

• Innovation: This area focuses on the technology transfer of the research outcomes to the real market together with companies and private or public institutions and when required using the force of the research and innovation networks where IDEAI belongs. Also, an active listening process to understand real need of productive sector is leading and inspiring the research activities conducted at IDEAI in many occasions. The associated actions are related to valorization of research through many different models, like registration, licencing, patent generation and IP enforcement, especially for software products; increasing relationships with local European start-ups and research networks; and fostering relationships with companies for innovative projects.

• Efficient resources: Here IDEAI helps to manage resources efficiently in various applications such as: mobility, transport, climate change, wastewater treatment, energy plans, smart grids, urban design, energy saving, infrastructure location or smart cities. IDEAI has experience working from an implementation perspective, but it also has AI resources to help define policies and provide support systems to manage them.

• Cybersecurity and computer networks: Within this field, AI is applied to enhance the efficiency and security of communication and computer networks. Moreover, researchers also explore special computer architectures specifically designed for AI computing.

• Talent: In this area IDEA works to connect students with talent with opportunities in companies and to move  universities and academic institutions from the generational gap to exciting new opportunities working on a talent-based job. The culture of entrepreneurship and the generation of new businesses are among our results. Furthermore, strengthening IDEAIs partnership with social agents, as well as working on the association between work and education with tools such as open innovation, will help talented people on their way. Responsible research and innovation are at the core of our work.

• Ethics: IDEAI promotes responsible R&D and ensure respect for and development of human-centred, trustworthy AI values. In line with the Barcelona Declaration for the proper development and use of AI in Europe, and the EU Ethical Guidelines for Trusted AI, our objectives are to: to foster ethical awareness in IDEAI research groups; to promote the presence of ethics, and specifically the existence of ethics courses, in the UPC undergraduate and postgraduate curricula; promote the creation of an ethics committee for the UPC; and collaborate with external institutions to define ethics standards and carry out actions to promote them, in particular with the Ethics

Training. Apart from the participation of IDEAI researchers in official training programs at UPC (such as the AI bachelor degree, Data Science bachelor degree, Statistics bachelor degree, Informatics engineering bachelor degree, Telecommunications bachelor degree, Official masters in AI, Informatics engineering, Telecommunications, Statistics and Operations Research, Data Science, Bioinformatics, Robotics, Sustainability, Computer Vision, and PhD program in AI), IDEAI also provides training programs at various levels.

IDEAI Permanent Training is the dedicated service for continuous and personalized education offered by IDEAI. It was established based on the IDEAI board agreement 2/26-05-2021. This service serves as a central hub for the training activities conducted by IDEAI members, offering a diverse range of training opportunities through informative sessions, specialized courses, in-company programs, and customized training initiatives. With the expertise of IDEAI's teaching staff, participants can acquire valuable skills and expand their knowledge base, and stay abreast of the latest developments in their field of AI. Current open courses are:

• CiutadanIA: It is a training open to everyone that does not require previous technical training to enroll. Additionally, individuals in the technology field who want to up-skill or re-skill can acquire basic AI skills through the ten modules of the course.
• Top Rosies Talent:  An program for the development of female talent in AI, aimed at girls currently studying or recently graduated in a STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics) field.
• The AI and Logistics course, overseen by the UPC School, is an educational program that focuses on the intersection of artificial intelligence and logistics. The UPC School of Professional & Executive Development (UPC School) is renowned for its extensive range of lifelong training courses. Annually, it offers over 200 master's degrees in continuing education, postgraduate courses, and other continuing education programs.

Dissemination.  It is a key aspect of IDEAI’s efforts. As part of this, video capsules covering various AI topics and challenges are created regularly, as well as the share of relevant news from the sector, including prizes, conferences, and other significant events. The voice of IDEAI is present in many of the public events and debates at local and international level. Both video capsules and updates on the sector are regularly uploaded to the website, ensuring easy access and widespread dissemination of valuable information in the field. Moreover, IDEAI is highly involved in the writing of WHITE PAPERS regarding the application of IA to several sectors (Cybersecurity, Health, Agrofood, Cultural and Creative industry, Mobility, Water)

Gender-Based Activities: IDEAI is strongly committed to addressing the gender gap in AI, informatics engineering, and STEAM fields as a whole. The head of IDEAI actively leads various women's groups in Catalonia and Spain and collaborates with the Barcelona School of Informatics, Official Professional College of Informatics Engineering of Catalonia, Catalan Association of AI, Women in Data Science Stanford, Women in ACM, Spanish Council of Informatics Engineering Professional colleges in Spain, Intercollegiate Association for Professional Colleges from Catalonia, Digital Future Society from Mobile World Capital, and the General Direction of Digital Society of the Catalan government to promote the visibility of female talent in STEAM fields in Catalonia. These collaborative efforts aim to inspire girls to pursue careers in these fields and to foster equal opportunities for professional advancement among female professionals in the sector.