AI enabling technologies are transforming all walks of life from education, health, public services, to transport, manufacturing, agriculture & social media. Transferring such technologies towards SMEs, the driving forces of a country’s economy, is key to support a sustainable, human-centric and resilient industry in the Danube Region. Currently, individual regions, even countries, have struggles to overcome the transformative challenges and gain new insights. In order to achieve a transformative impact, transnational harmonised support for the uptake of technologies alongside multiple value chains is essential. However, the Danube Region is formed by a heterogeneous and complex pool of countries and regions with respect to population, geographical size, business and innovation-maturity, and development level. Nonetheless, common challenges like the transfer of AI enabling technologies toward SMEs can be tackled with the help of well targeted transnational interventions such as “BrAIn – BRinging Artificial INtelligence towards SMEs”.

BrAIn’s objectives

During the BrAIn Kick-off event on January 22, 2024, in Budapest, Hungary, Carmen Hawkins and Helia Kovačević Grčić from PA 8 together with Cristina Cuc from Danube Strategy Point presented the Danube Strategy Flagship Certificate to the BrAIn project partners.

The BrAIn project is acknowledged as Danube Strategy Flagship because the project actions directly support the objectives of EUSDR PA 8 by contributing to the competitiveness of enterprises in the Danube Region. It does so by familiarizing SMEs with the relevance and potential of AI enabling technologies and equipping the main stakeholders with the necessary skills to follow i5.0. Furthermore, the partnership aims to connect to the proposed actions of PA8 since the lead partner, Pannon Business Network, is coordinator of a PA 8 Working Group himself and many project partners are members of PA 8 Working Groups too. In addition to its connection to PA8, the project is also supporting the goals of PA 7 (Knowledge Society) and PA 9 (People and Skills) as through the project activities the R&D potential of the Danube Region is supported.