The knowledge exchange was presented in the context of INNOPOLIS, an EU funded project that aims to identify regional best policy practices in the field of knowledge exchange between universities and enterprises.
An interview of both Ergobyte and CERTH/ITI key participants is available here.
Ergobyte launched in 2010 a new online service, «Galen», a unique reference to all knowledge around human medication. Information was captured internally in a way that it is understandable by both humans and computers. While display of existing information is already provided to users of the service, more complex manipulation requires complex technologies borrowed from the field of Artificial Intelligence and Semantic Networks.
Within Galen, enough information was available to answer questions like:
Instructing a computer to combine all possible matches of indications, contraindications, interactions and adverse reactions, was an important technological challenge that would be better overcome by a highly specialized research institute like ITI.
Ergobyte Informatics S.A. is a software development house founded in 2002 in Thessaloniki, Greece. The company develops innovative solutions for healthcare providers, it's main products being:
Collaboration with CERTH/ITI was excellent throughout the cycle of the project.
Three important in person meetings were held: the first one, around a year ago, was organized by George Intzesiloglou, who believed that a collaboration between Ergobyte and ITI was possible. We met with Yiannis Kompatsiaris, senior researcher at ITI, and discussed possible research collaborations. We were delighted to discover that our institutions had complementary skills: Ergobyte had medical codified data and the capacity to market profitable products while ITI had the necessary experience in building and using semantic networks. We decided to apply for a small fund called «Innovation Voucers».
During the second - «kick-off» - meeting, we decided to move forward with the knowledge exchange. Through much of the project our interactions were held exclusively through the Internet, with e-mail, dekstop sharing, chat and other collaboration tools. Charalampos Doulaverakis set up a development server and our staff conducted tests to assert the quality of the project's progress.
The last meeting, held just before the project's end, was probably the most important one: technical and scientific aspects of the deliverables were given a final assessment, and strategies for successful integration with existing Ergobyte methodologies were discussed and laid out.
The team, from Ergobyte's side, that brought the exchange to it's successful completion consisted of
A number of risks were associated with the exchange: on one hand, Ergobyte was giving important amounts of intellectual property, in the form of codified rules and associations. On the other hand ITI was risking handing over a greater extend of expertise than required, undermining future collaboration projects.
In order to reduce the risk undertaken by both parties, a number of preventive steps were taken: First, the exchange took place under non-discolosure aggreements. Second, data given by Ergobyte was partial, in that non-essential information was stripped off and only a percentage of the available rule base was given. And last, ITI provided only the necessary parts of the solution achieved.
One can distinguish two very important success factors for this knowledge exchange.
Complementarity of skills and capacities between involved parties made the project interesting and fun to work for, for all involved persons. Communication was excellent, thanks to a compatible work style and a common stance with respect to unforeseen situations
At this point it is worthwhile to mention the «Innovation Vouchers», a programme organized by the Greek Ministry of Education and co-funded by the EU. Our acquaintance with CERTH/ITI begun through an initial partnership under this programme, paving the way for this knowledge exchange and future projects.