The AI breakfast webinar was a resounding success: - What a professional arrangement!

The first AI breakfast webinar was a resounding success:

- Damn, what a good and in every way professional arrangement!

When the coronavirus made its way into Norway, the planned AI breakfast on predictive maintenance in Halden was turned into a webinar. On Friday morning, over 100 participants from far and near linked up to increase their knowledge of areas of use for artificial intelligence (AI).

By Mari Kristine Buckholm , 30 March 2020

- We are very satisfied with the participation and commitment to this webinar, and we would like to thank ITS Norway and the other speakers for their very good presentations and implementation. It is clear that the topic of predictive maintenance is relevant, and that the expertise that is made available adds something new. We can see this from the questions that are asked, and because we have already received several good feedbacks from the audience, says Marianne Jansson Bjerkman (pictured), project manager for the Cluster for Applied AI in Smart Innovation Norway.

• Watch the webinar recording here

The webinar, which was initially planned as a breakfast meeting for the industry cluster Cluster for Applied AI in the Simulator center in Halden, had 103 registered participants. These were primarily from the cluster, but there were also several from other networks and businesses.

- The commitment shows that the cluster's work is relevant to a wide audience. We want to continue working with the subject area of predictive maintenance, and encourage anyone who is interested to get in touch to investigate whether there are opportunities for collaboration, says Bjerkman.

She adds that the company will continue to offer digital content in the period ahead and advises all partners to take a look at Smart Innovation Norway's website to get an overview of upcoming activities .

Bragging rights from Innovation Norway

Friday's AI breakfast webinar was conducted via the interaction platform Zoom, and was set up so that the speaker showed his presentation in a large window, while the participants could watch the speaker speak in a smaller window next to it. In addition, you could click on the "Q&A" button at any time along the way to ask a question in writing, and the answer came within a short time from the relevant team.

- My immediate reaction after the webinar was "Damn what a good and in every way professional scheme, and it worked SO well to have such a breakfast meeting as a webinar!", says Helen Gjester (pictured), program manager for Digital competence lift - clusters as Omstillingmotor and special adviser, Growth and Transformation department, in Innovation Norway .

Guests have no doubt that both content and channel hit the participants very well, especially in the period the whole world is in now.

- The content is very useful and instructive for a non-technologist, and the webinar provided a good understanding of the application of AI "in practice" and the technology's commercial possibilities. Webinar as a form and Zoom as a channel worked great, we were able to both see and hear the speakers and their slides, as well as questions from the participants and answers from the panel. The whole scheme was expertly moderated, boasts the Innovation Norway advisor.

- Proof that it works

She believes the webinar is a perfect example of how it is possible to reach out to the public in a good way, even if physical meeting places are out of the question.

- I think everyone who took part will confirm that this was proof that webinars are in every way a full-fledged alternative to physical meeting places - in fact just as good and perhaps better. The only thing you miss is the informal chat you can have with other participants, presenters and meeting organizers immediately afterwards, she points out, and continues:

- On the positive side, you avoid questions "from the floor" which often take time. The fact that the questions must be asked in writing in a chat raises the threshold just right, so that there are relevant and concrete questions. This was well demonstrated in the webinar, with good and concrete questions that gave the presenters the opportunity to elaborate and clarify. IFE's Tomas Nordlander's "real-life" espresso machine example was absolutely brilliant in that respect!

Useful knowledge

Anett Andreassen (pictured), director of digitization and development at Statsbygg , also followed the webinar from her home office.

- I think there were interesting issues and a nice breadth in the posts. For me, it was particularly interesting to hear how Microsoft works with AI. I am left with new knowledge about ethics and how we can be more aware of how we use data, says Andreassen.

She believes it is important that companies are now able to maintain activities and make arrangements to continue and develop:

- That is why I think it is important that the AI cluster continues to convey experiences and challenges, it will also lay the foundation for someone wanting to start up their own businesses and that we can get new entrepreneurial businesses off the ground. So hang on!

Teaching by example

From the global company HTS machine technology , which supplies high-quality mechanical precision components to the underwater, space and defense industries, CTO (Chief Technology Officer) Espen Henriksen-Polanscak participated. He thinks the topic of predictive maintenance is very relevant and found all posts to be rich in content and instructive.

- I was left with a feeling that there are opportunities out there and that society in general really needs this technology. The webinar was well led and it was easy to follow. I myself learn most from concrete examples and I really liked the post about solar cells and maintenance and operation around this. It becomes very clear that there is a need for technology to ensure power production on such a scale, comments Henriksen-Polanscak (pictured).

He was initially not registered for the physical breakfast meeting, but joined when he saw that it was to be held as a webinar instead.

- By participating in such virtual meetings, you get professional updates on relevant topics. Such meetings are perfect for the times we are in now, he concludes.