On 14 and 15 of May Austria Wirtschaftsservice has held in Vienna the official kick-off event and the first transnational seminar to start the project “embrAIsme - Improving conditions and policies for SMEs to embrace AI”, encouraging the uptake of AI by SMEs regardless of their location, size, and sector in the partner countries.

        Representatives from partner countries have been offered the opportunity to get acquainted with the Austria’s financing mechanisms for SMEs.

        After the welcome Speech from CEO of Austria Wirtschaftsservice (aws) Mr. Bernhard Sagmeister the Austrian practices in funding for first steps for SMEs towards implementation of AI were presented.

       An international team of experts from partner countries – Mrs. Henriette Spyra (BMK), Mrs, Maya Pindeus (AUT), Mr. David Bermingham (IRL), Mr. Kaloyan Ratchev (BGR), Mrs. Jouni Markkanen (FIN) snd Mr. Eliano Marques (PT) facilitated a vivid and very fruitful discussion between partners on how they can most effectively shape the adoption of artificial intelligence by businesses in Europe and in partnering regions. A specific accent was put on how to ensure AI is implemented by SMEs in a manner that is both efficient and trustworthy.

On the next day, partners had an intensive and inspiring program with good practices discussions and study visits in Vienna.

First, an interactive workshop about Finance in AI was organised by AWS to deepen the knowledge of partners on how to identify their weaknesses in relation to public Grants and Grant Systems correlated to AI for SME´s. Participants then worked out together, led by Mr. Hannes A. Schwetz, AWS Progam manager AI on an exercise focused on designing the most appropriate grant program for their country.

After the workshop the event participants went to an organised visit to the company "Zone14", an Austrian Company focused on providing an analysis with the help of AI evaluating the performance of passes, shots, corner kicks, and duel statistics of the players being filmed. Guests improved their understanding on the new approaches applied by the company and concluded that the visit has enlarged their comprehension about how AI can drastically change te company competitive value.

The event was the first step towards the project ambitions to foster AI excellence from the lab to the market and accelerate investment in AI while creating rules to ensure that the technology is trustworthy in participating 7 countries.