pop AI and TeamAware, two European Commission’s projects for Eticas Foundation

Eticas Foundation is working on two European projects under the Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Framework Programme. Both are related to the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the improvement of this technology.

 

pop AI, A European Positive Sum Approach towards AI tools in support of Law Enforcement and safeguarding privacy and fundamental rights

The core vision of pop AI is to foster trust in AI for the security domain via increased awareness, ongoing social engagement, consolidating distinct spheres of knowledge (including theoretical & empirical knowledge by academics & non-academics). pop AI will bring together security practitioners, AI scientists, ethics and privacy researchers, civil society organisations, and social Sciences and humanities experts for 24 months under Eticas Consulting Coordination and Support Action.

The objective is to consolidate their knowledge, exchanging experience, and raising awareness in the EU area. At the same time that they offer a unified European view across Law Enforcement Authorities (LEAs), and specialised knowledge outputs (recommendations, roadmaps, etc.), and create an ecosystem that will form the structural basis for a sustainable and inclusive European AI hub for Law Enforcement.

pop AI approaches the call requirements under a sustainable ecosystem perspective, aiming to create cross-disciplinary ecosystem AI-LEA ethics hubs. First, we aim to utilize existing knowledge, but also an extensive set of studies, to identify and record the direct and indirect stakeholders of the “security and AI” setting, as well as their respective points of view (concerns, perceived opportunities, challenges). This recording aims to further delve into the dynamic interactions of these stakeholders and ensure appropriate gender and diversity representation in the participatory processes. This way, pop AI will tap into the rich knowledge of a wide range of experts to define appropriate interactions and material (e.g. talks, cross-disciplinary reports, workshops, online resources) that will allow co-creation within the ecosystem. Such interaction will empower a Positive Sum viewpoint when participating in innovation processes related to security and AI (from idea inception, to product development and application).

 

TeamAware, Team Awareness Enhanced with Artificial Intelligence and Augmented Reality

This project of 36 months, helps first responders, being the groups of people, services and organisations whose duty is to arrive first to an emergency zone. The main objective of TeamAware Project is to develop an integrated and cost-efficient situational awareness system for these teams from different sectors with heterogeneous and hardly interoperable sensor units including drone mounted, wearable, and external sensor systems, existing first responder services, and operation centres.

While they perform search, save and rescue operations, and perform crisis management in natural or human-made disasters they often use inefficient, weak and obsolete technologies in the operations. That is why, with respect to the current situation and even though they have specialised skills and qualifications, the operational capabilities of the first responders can be dramatically boosted by the advances in technology and engineering fields. Among these technologies, we find smart sensor systems, wearables, data processing, data fusion, data analytics, communication infrastructure, and artificial intelligence tools.

In sum, the purpose of TeamAware is to enhance crisis management, flexibility and reaction capability of first responders of different sectors through real-time, fused, refined, filtered, and manageable information by using highly-standardized augmented reality and mobile human machine interfaces.

 

Horizon 2020 in brief

Horizon 2020 is the biggest EU research and innovation programme ever launched. It takes great ideas from the lab to the market with the objective to lead to important breakthroughs, discoveries and world-firsts. With almost €80 billion of over 7 years, the programme has the political backing of Europe’s leaders and the Members of the European Parliament. They agreed that investment in research and innovation is essential for Europe’s future and so put it at the heart of the Europe 2020 strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth.

Horizon 2020 is helping to achieve this by coupling research to innovation and focusing on three key areas: excellent science, industrial leadership and societal challenges. The goal is to ensure Europe produces world-class science and technology that drives economic growth. Their innovations have improved lives, helped protect the environment and made European industry more sustainable and competitive.