Inova has been selected as one of the brightest “Big Data” startups in Europe

Inova has been selected to take part in the European Data Incubator (EDI), a 3-year project that offers around 100 startups the chance to solve data challenges set by major European corporates like Volkswagen Navarra, RACC motoring club and the multinational Sonae.

What is EDI?

EDI is an incubation programme run by 20 partners across Europe.

It gives the most innovative “Big Data” startups the opportunity to tackle real world challenges set by corporates across Europe, such as improving road safety in Barcelona or predicting fraudulent transactions in supermarkets.

Inova is taking part in EDI to solve the challenge set by Volkswagen Navarra: Thermal power plant smart management. Our approach is to reduce the energy consumption by the thermal plant improving its efficiency by optimising the plant operation, adjusting starts and stops according to plant heat demands. To reach it, Inova will use reinforcement learning to obtain a control system able to decide whether to switch on or off a thermal plant which produces superheated water for heating and production. The control system will receive data -such as weather, factory temperature, or production schedule-, and output control actions -on/off, water flow-. The system will be trained by making it take actions in a virtual environment that simulates the thermal plant and rewarding actions that lead to smaller global energy consumption.

Benefits include up to €100k in equity-free funding, mentoring, workshops, access to a free cloud environment, and the chance to connect with and be recognised by major European organizations.

Datathon in Berlin

Each year of EDI incubation process is divided into three progressive phases, in which only the best startups pass to the next level: ‘Explore’, ‘Experiment’, ‘Evolve’.

On 17 and 18 October, Inova will travel to Berlin with 30 other startups for the first ‘Explore’ phase. Here we will take part in a datathon, practice our pitches, receive €5k (equity-free) and meet face to face with the corporates. Finally, a jury will decide which 16 startups will pass to the next ‘Experiment’ level.