in                   

AVIS, the Italian Association of Blood Volunteers in Milan, is burdened with the obligation to comply with all the rules and regulations required by Health Accreditation (national and European standards), Good Practices in the Pharmaceutical Sector, Occupational Safety, ISO 9000:2015 (Quality), Privacy, Data Protection and IT Security (GDPR).

It has recognized the digital platform as an ideal tool to manage the legal requirements in a single system, actively involving and supporting all staff in conformity with the rules and regulations during their daily work. The same people, equipment and processes are involved in the different contents for monitoring, so it was essential to avoid redundancies, data processing, and certainty of updating.

The clear and logical structure of the platform, which offers structural content such as generic processes and risk assessment catalogues, allowed AVIS to be immediately operational. After 5 days of training and only 3 weeks (8 hours/day) of customization, the platform is in use and grows day by day following the process of continual improvement.
The knowledge inside AVIS-Milan regarding “how”, “why” and “what are the rules is now available to managers and employees at an individual level, through a workstation (dashboard) customized for each role and workplace, which allows the employees to receive a legally compliant answer to their question with a simple click. Tutto ciò secondo i compiti attribuiti e sulla base del “bisogno di sapere” di ognuno, in modo che tutti i requisiti necessari diventino trasparenti e siano convogliati attraverso l’organizzazione in una fonte di risorse facilmente accessibile.

For AVIS, the social impact is clear: the digital platform supports staff in optimising their time and the quality of their daily work, ensuring safety and high quality services to blood donors thus reducing risks and costs in a measurable and sustainable manner.

Vanghelis Spiridon, technical coordinator, head of medical procurement and member of the quality team at AVIS writes: “…to perform these functions I have always looked for a tool that would help me in my work in a flexible way, adapted to my needs, to those of our organization and the growing need to comply with ISO standards, the new GDPR standards and Health and Safety at Work. With PROMIS® I have reached a point of optimum management of everything that is my responsibility, I have seen that the nurses and doctors are satisfied with the simplicity of the management system, and above all I am pleased that PROMIS® follows and meets all my needs in the service of AVIS.

Knowledge intensive Services for Open Innovation – PROMIS was presented in the context of Systemic Open Innovation highlighting:

Human-centred Politics * Human-centred Security * Human-centred Technology
i.e. the HUMAN PERSON at the heart of the system.

The result of well administered EC funding and successfully deployed Knowledge Intensive interactive Services for Systemic Open Innovation, was shown with 2 practice-oriented examples:

1. Global Crisis and Disaster Resilience
2. WePROMIS®

Please see the outcome at http://www.knowledge4innovation.eu/8th-eis-outcome

Ramona Oros, Andreas Pester and Caterina Berbenni-Rehm

Abstract: In our rapidly changing world where technology is continuingly being updated and altered, the learning process should (must) be continual as well. To ensure the highest quality of work performance, there are three requirements: 1) clearly structured learning processes; 2) well-organized and structured learning; and 3) knowledge and skill pools. These are especially necessary for novel and rapidly changing technologies such as online engineering.
Download the paper (pdf)

Scientix Observatory, March 2016.
http://www.scientix.eu/web/guest/observatory/#Nistor2016

Nistor, A., Jiménez-Iglesias, M., Gras-Velázquez, À., Berbenni-Rehm, C., Cantó, J., Cunha, C., Daumur, I., Debono, F., Diaz Marcos, J., Gil Docampo, M., Idin, S., Ioan, T., Janes, M., Jochemczyk, W., Kerkhoven, A., Lambrechts, P., Lammer, L., Laporta Grau, M., Lefkos, I., Lepuschitz, W., Muñoz, A., Oledzka, K., Olivotto, C., Ortiz, J., Owen, L., Palavitsinis, N., Perez-Rubio, V. J., Pinzi, V., Rogers, M. W., Roszkowska-Lech, B., Souza, G., Vuk, B. & Wasaznik, A. (2016)

Abstract: Fast-advancing societal changes require flexible educational systems, ready to equip students with the skills and competencies needed to respond to them. Projects in science education tend to be quick in picking up these trends and are already producing materials and activities aimed at introducing new scientific thought in the classrooms. But curriculum change in many countries is often a lengthy process, involving complex decision-making mechanisms. This paper draws from the discussions between managers and representatives of over 20 projects in science education, which took place during the 10thScientix Projects Networking Event and attempts to shed an overview on potential ways of introducing new STEM topics in educational curricula across Europe and beyond.
Download the paper (pdf)

Accelerating the adoption, deployment and use of Cloud Computing by small businesses (SMEs).
CloudingSMEs provides support services to European SMEs, in order to facilitate them in adopting and fully leveraging the benefits of cloud computing services.
CloudingSMEs is driven by a vision for the optimal adoption and use of cloud computing within SME communities, and by a set of road maps aiming at the realization of this vision.

The Services

The Grand Coalition for Digital Jobs, Pledge to the European Commission

PROMIS@Service has entered in alliance with, and in solidarity to the “Millennia2025 Solidarity-Women” action developed by the Millennia2025 Women and Innovation Foundation (PUF), sharing the WePROMIS® eMentoring platform to support and advise women in precarious situations among others, through eSkills. The Millennia2015 community counts 1.505 contributors in its Think Tank, 3.827 members and 10.299 contacts in 133 countries or regions in February 2014. Key values of the Millennia2015 “An action plan for women’s empowerment” (www.millennia2015.org), organized by The Destree Institute with the patronage of UNESCO and the United Nations, are the equality between women and men, the respect of rights and diversity, the development of the human capital and the digital solidarity in order to empower women. The Millennia2015 process, built with its international partners, is structured through three phases: “Information transfer”, “Knowledge process” and “Intelligence platforms”. The Millennia2015 foresight research process acts in a view of digital solidarity with those who do not access communications tools and who nevertheless are drivers of changes. With WePROMIS® as eSkill enabler instrument, the alliance between PROMIS@Service and the Millennia2025 Women and Innovation Foundation objective is to achieve these concrete actions and action plans in favor of women and girls in the concerned countries, for their empowerment and for gender equality.

Managing the maintenance process within Small-Medium Enterprises (SMEs) often entails high direct and indirect costs. Now they can benefit from a new software solution helping them to develop their maintenance processes.

Especially during periods of economical and financial crisis, SMEs do not invest in improving and re-engineering their Maintenance Engineering Processes (MEP), thus leading to additional productive and economical losses. In order to make the MEP sustainable for SMEs, it is necessary to implement new organizational models by adopting innovative solutions. (…)
Published in the magazine: MaintWorld, maintenance & asset management:
40-41 MaintWorld_2-2014 PROMIS

Participants:

• Richard Gowland, Technical Director at the European Process Safety Centre (epsc)
• Caterina Berbenni-Rehm, CEO at PROMIS @Service, Luxembourg

• A German communication scientist and self-called public intellectual has stated: „Information is the cement of society“. Do you agree or disaccord? Or maybe you want to add something?
• How easy or how difficult is it to make IT knowledge tangible and measurable in its value and benefits for SMEs and organizations?
• Undoubtedly, the world around us gets more and more interconnected and globalized. Are „knowledge economy“ and „networking economy“ the new driving forces of nowadays information society?
• What is actually meant by „collaboration“ in today’s business environment and is its great potential already exploited enough?
• In what way does the professional, highly qualified cloud platform PROMIS® specifically support SMEs following the changing work processes?
• In a broadcast last year in this studio there was discussed – amongst others – the request of the European Commission for public institutions to open their shrines full of information, data, knowledge and to put them at the service of users. Please give us an idea of what has happened within this context during the last 12 months.

Europe goes Cloud – Digital Jobs for Europe

Participants:

• Eric Blot-Lefrère, Chairman of TrustSeed, Paris, France
• Caterina Dr. Berbenni-Rehm, CEO at PROMIS @Service, Luxembourg

Recent studies show evidence that nearly 27 million people in the EU are without work. The gap between the countries of Europe in terms of employment is large. Once we are ready to accept the principle that through IT developments and facilities such as Cloud Computing, Big Data, Mobility or Social Business, a potential increase of more than 100,000 digital and related jobs per year can be imagined. There is a tremendous opportunity for the European labour market.

Until now wish and reality across countries are still a long way away from each other. When it comes to IT-related and technical professions, the number of relevant graduates decreases. In addition, we witness the retirement of many valuable professionals today and in the coming years.

The Grand Coalition for Digital Jobs is a contribution of the European Commission to get the European economy back on track. Part of this initiative includes training and Skills Matching with leading IT companies in Europe, a common EU certification scheme for IT skills, eMentoring, as well as the funding of support services for computer scientists. European IT companies, governments and education and training institutions are explicitly called to stand up and become active, so that in Europe by 2015 as many IT jobs as possible are generated.

2014 will offer several opportunities to meet MoniQA and colleagues from around the globe – we hope to see you at one or the other MoniQA supported meeting.

• 17 January 2014: Info Day 2014 Horizon 2020 calls for proposals – Societal Challenge 2 and LEIT Biotechnology, Brussels, Belgium.
  ec.europa.eu/research/bioeconomy/news-events/news/20140117_en.htm
  MoniQA’s Secretary General, Roland Poms, will attend on behalf of MoniQA’s members and provide support for Horizon 2020 project proposals.
• 4-7 February 2014: MoniQA FST “Alternative Methods for Microbiological Analysis of Foods and Feeds”, Plovdiv, Bulgaria (in Bulgarian language).
  More info: www.moniqa.org/news/fst_plovdiv_feb_2014
• 24-26 February 2014: 3^rd iFAAM Consortium Meeting, Vienna, Austria (by invitation only, MoniQA is partner).
  www.moniqa.org/news/ifaam_project
• 27 February 2014: MoniQA Allergen Reference Materials Meeting, Vienna, Austria.
  Interested? Contact moniqa@moniqa.org!
• 2 March 2014: Joint MoniQA/IAM Workshop for Codex Alimentarius (CCMAS) “Sampling Uncertainty”, Budapest, Hungary.
  Register now at www.moniqa.org/news/workshop_budapest_march_2014!
• 31 March – 2 April 2014: MoniQA Session & General Assembly, at RME2014 – 9^th Conference “Rapid Methods Europe”, Noordwijkerhout, Netherlands.
  www.bastiaanse-communication.com/rme2014
• 12-14 May 2014: Final International PlantLibra Conference, Vienna, Austria.
  Register now at plantlibra2014.icc.or.at!