BonsAPPs announces Open Call for European SMEs seeking to improve their products, services, or value chains with AI at Edge
Purpose-built to enable Small to Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs) along their journey to provide scalable, industry-agnostic Artificial Intelligence (AI) solutions, BonsAPPs will be accepting applicants for its second EU-funded open call until November 2, 2022.
Our 2nd open call is active
Madrid, August 2022 – BonsAPPs, a consortium of eight industrial and academic partners (ISDI, Hes-so, Nviso, FundingBox, ST Microelectronics, BCA, BTH and UNIBO) funded by the EU Horizon 2020 research program, today announces it will launch an Open Call to Small-to-Medium Enterprises (SMEs) looking to support “low tech” SMEs that lack internal competences in Artificial Intelligence (AI) implementation. SMEs that fulfil eligibility criteria can apply to the programme until November 2, 2022.
The BonsAPPs initiative aims to help establish Europe as a leader in Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence-enabled solutions by identifying high-value AI/ML challenges facing SMEs and creating and deploying reusable solutions for these challenges. Longer term, this validated process for identifying and solving business problems using AI will be accessible as an ongoing commercial service on the Bonseyes Marketplace, a secure and distributed AI-as-a-Service (AIaaS) Platform that reduces time and cost of AI@Edge development.
Who can apply
After the open call period, BonsAPPs will select SMEs with a variety of AI Maturity; be that companies who possess a solidified go-to-market strategy for an AI-enabled product, or promising enterprises with a strong track record for innovation now seeking to engage with AI in a more strategic manner.
To gauge where they might fall in terms of AI adoption, SME applicants are encouraged to consider how they might align with the following categories:
- AI Aware – SMEs seeking to find an AI-based solution for their company.
- AI Ready – SMEs who require little or no development resources to scope and implement their AI solution.
- AI Competent – SMEs with limited resources and budget looking for a collaborative innovation channel for a new Proof of Concept to scale up their internal resources.
In terms of pitching their Use Case, SMEs are instructed to shape their AI product/solution proposal along the following guideposts:
- Each proposal must demonstrate a high potential use case for the development of low-cost, highly scalable AI apps and edge solutions.
- All AI at Edge solution use cases must be developed using Bonseyes AI Marketplace services and resources.
- SMEs must demonstrate an availability of good-quality commercial data.
- Each proposal must elect a representative from their team who will be able to lead the entire Edge AI development and integration process with external providers (AI Talents and HPC) during the 6-month support programme, end-to-end.
- All proposals must demonstrate the ability that their proposed product can be applied in other potential industries or end-user processes.
What are the benefits?
Successful applicants will receive up to €74,000 in equity-free funding for the development of an AI solution to cover costs of the six-month program, which includes a voucher to engage external AI experts and High Performance Computing (HPC) providers. Additionally, each product will be awarded ‘certified AI user’ status on the Bonseyes Marketplace platform and receive rights to re-use and commercialise AI solutions for new AI@Edge products. Finally, all participating SMEs will be awarded support from AI business mentors eager to help each enterprise develop novel business strategies based on outcomes from the project.
