#ENRIITCyourCoffee Season 3: Episode 3 “EOSC Digital Innovation Hub”

Welcome to the recap of another captivating Thursday coffee break. We were joined by Sy Holsinger from European Open Science Cloud Digital Innovation Hub (EOSC DIH). Sy started the meeting with a short introduction on EOSC DIH, which sprung out of EOSC-Hub and is an international and multi-partner cooperation that supports companies in easily accessing the digital technologies and services offered by the EOSC DIH. Sy summarises the complex entity of the Digital Innovation Hub as a centre that helps to test before you invest – allow people to test their products, develop new products, move them through maturity life cycles, and then potentially into the market.

“But we always say if a credit card can solve your problem, we’re probably not for you.”

In the EOSC DIH the true value is in the various digital solutions (computing storage, data management, partners for machine learning and artificial intelligence) and the expertise that comes with it.

Another key component here is visibility. Sy emphasised how this is a very underrated value for small companies. By partnering with international organisations it raises the profile of what small companies would otherwise get in their local market in a multiplier effect. This is especially important when a company is starting off and every euro in the budget is dedicated to the product development. Marketing is often not the priority. With EOSC DIH the companies are on websites, pamphlets and invited to conferences, which is all invaluable for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). In a nutshell EOSC DIH aims to be a community and a facilitator. Their team is branched in a vast number of different sectors, across a number of different industries. The success stories and other pilots can be seen on EOSC DIH page here.

EOSC Future is going to be the next project and will continue the evolution of the Digital Innovation Hub.

Very promptly Marco Galeotti from EMSO ERIC asked further about EOSC Future. Sy expanded that EOSC-Hub was in a way the first implementation project like setting up the internal core services, a monitoring, accounting etc. It also started to involve some of the thematic services and competence centres and start to build on it. EOSC Future on the other hand has many partners and is replicating and vastly expanding what EOSC-Hub was across the landscape. This 30 month project will add complexity, but there was only excitement in Sy’s voice.

Next question came from Claudia Alen Amaro from Instruct ERIC and she asked how Sy handles that perhaps EOSC is misleading: “The acronym mentions cloud, but it’s not really the cloud, and it’s open to more than Europeans, plus there is more than science. None of the letters are really what it says in the name.” With a relatable chuckle from the rest of our coffee drinkers, Sy explains that the project started out as the name refers, focusing on cloud computing but quickly grew out of it. “In fact, our six business pilots when we started the project, they were all using infrastructure services, because in 2018, that’s what it meant. But then it grew over time and we started adding in community specifics and data etc. So the cloud became itself nebulous. I think there are about 200 services now available.” And how does one make sense in that? Sy put it well:

“Unless you know what you’re looking for, you are going to have to talk to a human.” Sy encourages anyone with a deeper interest, to reach out and contact him or his team.

Sy gave us a more elaborate and thorough answer and further expanded on the impressive aim and scope of EOSC Future and the secret sauce they have to choose projects. That and many more details will be for our readers to explore from the recording below.

Experience this first hand and join us next Thursday at our usual time of 15.00 CEST.