On 12 February at 18.00, students, representatives of companies, organisations and RTU management will gather at the Science and Innovation Centre of Riga Technical University (RTU), «The Moon», Kipsalas iela 6A, to start an unprecedented programme «Creating Innovative Digital Solutions to HPC Challenges». In this programme, university students will seek solutions to challenges defined by companies and the Children's Clinical University Hospital related to the effective use of big data and technologies in improving the quality of healthcare, education, environment and various services. The RTU supercomputer will be used to develop them.
41 students, mainly from RTU, Riga Stradins University (RSU) and the University of Latvia (UL) will participate in the programme. The students represent different study levels - from Bachelor to PhD - and study programmes.
The Children's Clinical University Hospital (CCUH) invites students to map information related to patient treatment and care. The CCUH Palliative Care Service team cares for more than 250 seriously ill children who need long-term care at home every year. This requires taking into account information on where the child lives, the treatment and care process and its outcomes, the multidisciplinarity of the treatment and care team, medical devices in the home, the need for psychological support, etc. Information tends to be fragmented and rapidly changing, so it can be challenging to plan visits and keep track of patients' conditions.
Patient data is also at the heart of the Datamed challenge - students will have to think how to digitise this sensitive information efficiently and quickly. And the association «One step ahead of melanoma» calls for the creation of an app that reminds users of their UV index level and provides daily skin protection tips according to their skin phototype and daily activities. Meanwhile, «Riga Forests» is challenging students to create a mapping solution for urban green infrastructure objects, which, by aggregating information available on the web, would allow to list trees, shrubs, etc. in the city or in specific areas of the city. The solution should also be able to calculate the amount of CO2 sequestered and accumulated by green infrastructure, tracking its fluctuations in real time.
The telecommunications company «Tet» invites students to create a computer vision solution that distinguishes between good and bad cable connections. The solution should include data labelling and pre-processing, training of a machine learning model, validation of the model results to create a reliable solution for identifying poor quality cable connections. It is vital for the company to ensure both continuity of service to the end customer and fair competition in the telecommunications market. The team that will take on the Accenture challenge will have to develop an interactive and adaptive training programme that combines the latest innovations in generative artificial intelligence, face/emotion recognition, etc. The «Bruntor» challenge will require the team to develop a solution to help plan the staff needed to make deliveries by analysing and processing delivery transport data.
Students will learn to create innovative digital solutions through digital prototyping and design thinking. Using digital tools also used in industry and high-performance computing technologies, they will work with experts and mentors from RTU and industry to develop solutions in the form of a prototype, conceptual project or research.
«Creating Innovative Digital Solutions to HPC Challenges» is part of the project «Acquiring High-Level Digital Skills in High Performance Computing in Latvia» (project No 2.3.1.1.i.0/1/22/I/CFLA/003), in which 12 study modules on high-performance computing are developed and implemented by science universities - RTU, RSU and LU. The teaching staff has already developed the study courses that make up the modules, and their validation in universities and industry has started this year. By taking part in the programme, students will apply the knowledge they gain in their courses to real-world challenges.
The project «High-level digital skills training in high-performance computing in Latvia» is funded by the EU's Recovery and Resilience Facility. It aims to increase the number of professionals in Latvia with high-level digital skills (DigComp levels 7-8) who can use technology to develop knowledge- and technology-intensive new products and services in different sectors, and to create synergies between higher education, science and industry that foster innovation with maximum commercialisation and export potential.
