Vienna, May 24, 2024 - Innovative research is not an end in itself, but needs economic exploitation potential in order to benefit the general public. The AIT Austrian Institute of Technology organizes the annual AIT Poster Award in order to anchor the know-how for this in young researchers as early as possible. This year, eleven diploma students, doctoral candidates and junior scientists from six AIT Centers took part in the AIT Poster Award 2024. On May 23, 2024, the winners were honored at the AIT Poster Award Ceremony. “The AIT is committed to excellent research and its implementation for the economy and for the benefit of society,” emphasizes Alexander Svejkovsky, Managing Director of the AIT Austrian Institute of Technology. Since its introduction in 2010, the award has been supported by the Lower Austrian tech incubator accent and the venture capital fund tecnet equity. These partnerships are essential to the success of the competition.

The first place in the Digital Health category went to Martin Baumgartner from the AIT Center for Health & Bioresources. The AIT's Digital Health team has developed so-called “Health Data Space Nodes”, which enable decentralized harmonization of patient data from different healthcare facilities to improve patient care through AI-supported diagnostic tools.

This technology uses advanced de-identification techniques to ensure data privacy and make the data usable for research purposes. This innovation represents a further development in healthcare and enables more precise predictions of patient outcomes and thus an improvement in quality of life. Future developments should extend the application of this technology to other medical areas in order to exploit the full potential of AI.

“Results from research and development are central to successful value creation. At tecnet, we support AIT scientists in developing suitable exploitation strategies and finding suitable financing. Knowledge about the commercial use of research should be anchored in young talents as early as possible,” explains Doris Agneter, Managing Director of the venture capital fund tecnet equity.

“Even outstanding scientific work is of little use if it is not presented in such a way that industry recognizes its potential,” adds Michael Moll, Managing Director of accent Inkubator GmbH. “As a Tough Tech Incubator, accent supports projects in successfully transforming their innovative technologies into start-up business models.”

Second place went to Olivia Zechner from the AIT Center for Technology Experience, who presented an innovative approach to improving virtual reality (VR) training for first responders (e.g. police, paramedics, firefighters). The aim is to provide personalized, tailored training using new technologies in combination with biosignals. The developed training system uses artificial intelligence (AI) to create dynamic, stress-conscious training scenarios by monitoring physiological signals such as heart rate and heart variability of the participants in real time and recording this data. A real-time stress indicator and intelligent scenario control that adapts to the trainee's stress level serve to optimize learning outcomes. The trainees are equipped with wearable technology (e.g. chest strap with sensors or smartwatch) to continuously collect and transmit data in real time. This provides the trainers with objective data that can be used for debriefing and providing feedback to the trainees immediately after training.

Third place went to CASSANDRA, a simulation tool for cascading effects in complex networks, by Manuel Egger from the Center for Digital Safety & Security. CASSANDRA plays a central role in the risk management of critical infrastructures, particularly in the context of the NIS2 and RKE directives. In view of increasing networking and digitalization, infrastructures must be considered holistically in risk management, as problems in one infrastructure inevitably affect others. CASSANDRA enables a better understanding and awareness of problematic cascading effects in complex networks. The tool simulates the reactions of the entire mapped network to incidents and supports critical infrastructures in minimizing the negative effects of common attack vectors. The web-based application provides easy access as well as detailed statistics and visualizations of the simulation results.

“AIT has successfully initiated seven spin-offs in the last three years, two of them last year. Further spin-offs are already in the pipeline and we have concrete ideas for future projects. Thematically, we are very broadly positioned - from life sciences to platform economics to tool development for urban planning. We work intensively with other research players, financiers and partners in the Austrian spin-off landscape. We live these collaborations very intensively in order to maximize the innovative strength and success of our spin-offs,” explains Managing Director Svejkovsky.