COMPETENCE CENTRE: BI-REX AND SMACT GET UNDERWAY

Innovation, industrial research, guidance and training for companies. These are the key words that define the mission of the eight competence centres, consortia that bring together universities, research institutions, companies and foundations, funded by the Italian Ministry of Economic Development (MISE) to foster collaborations between research and business in “Industry 4.0” technologies. The first two competence centers, BI-REX (Big data Innovation and Research EXcellence) and SMACT (acronym for the technologies that it will deal with Social, Mobile, Analytics, Cloud and Internet of Things) have just got underway and thanks to its expertise in both computing and big data, INFN plays a structural role. BI-REX, a public-private consortium based at the University of Bologna, will be at the service of companies throughout Italy, providing them with training, advice and guidance in the adoption of technologies related to connectivity, automation, advanced manufacturing and big data. SMACT, a joint-stock consortium company, on the other hand, will manage the Triveneto Competence Centre. With its participation in BI-REX and SMACT, INFN further strengthens its commitment to making available to Italian companies the technological know-how developed with the frontier activities carried out in the field of research in fundamental physics and in the management and development of the enormous wealth of digital information collected from the distributed sensor networks, which underlie the industrial revolution in progress.