LEDGER ensures data sovereignty and eliminates concentration of data in a few proprietary platforms by accelerating 32 bottom-up experiments on human centric values (privacy-by-design, reliability, trustworthiness and openness as core values) and 6 verticals (Health, Finance, Media, Public Services and Energy plus a generic one 'Open Disruptive Innovation). LEDGER will overcome Non-technological (Admin burden, Searching costs, bias in grant distribution, lack of use cases, User awareness, Access to Finance, Lock-in, Entrepreneurial Discovery and Regulation gap) and Technological barriers (Lack of Standards, lack of playground environments and Access to knowledge). LEDGER´s architecture relies in Mission-oriented, Market pull, Entrepreneurial discovery, Smart funding and Open-Technology. LEDGER will build on EC projects related to data governance: DECODE, D-CENT and PIE NEWS. 400 teams will be activated to develop the best applications that will run through a Minimum Viable Product Builder including mentoring and access to the Distributed Ledger Technology from DEVUAN.org. Up to 200k euros for the best teams will get startups ready for Venture Capital, pre-Initial Coin Offering and/or crowdfunding. LEDGER partners complete the community building, discovery, tech transfer and sustainability cycle. FundingBox - European leader in Financial Support to Third Parties will attract startups from its 15.000 members platform. DYNE will bring researchers and developers from its 10.000 members. Blumorpho will engage Researchers (7.200), Entrepreneurs (7.400) and investors (800) to guarantee sustainability. Linking with other ecosystem this ads to 110.000 people incl. 60% of potential Human Centric Innovators. 80 evaluators and 40 State-of-the-Art experts will develop alternative models that preserve wealth created by data-driven platforms that is equally distributed. LEDGER will transform Europe into the world leading human centric and data sovereign Entrepreneurial Union.

IMPACT EdTech will set up a hybrid incubator-accelerator to support 43 promising EdTech prototypes from digital learning disruptors in validating and testing Minimum Viable Products, in collaboration with education players, and prepare them to reach the market by providing early business and go-to-market support. 3 Open Calls will be launched to select Disruptors developing promising and innovative personalised digital learning solutions aiming to shape the education of the future. IMPACT EdTech will focus on: (A) K12 EdTech solutions; (B) B2C content-based solutions open to any age group and/or level of education. Personalisation implies a specific focus on adaptive & interactive solutions. Inclusion implies support of targeted/niche learning solutions for specific vulnerable or underserved groups, including children with special needs, but also of mainstream learning solutions, if they are accessible and inclusive-by-design. Selected EdTech Trials will iterate MVP design engaging with targeted end-users and education experts, following a ‘pedagogy-first’ approach. The IMPACT EdTech innovation cycle will incorporate, for the most promising projects selected from two main open calls, pre-acceleration activities to test market interest and facilitate early deals, as well as short-cycle pilots to obtain preliminary impact assessment data that investors and clients require. An emergency 'Remote Schooling' open call will help identify solutions fit to address common challenges faced by schools during the COVID-19 crisis. These solutions will participate in a fast-track 5-months acceleration programme, during which they will be supported in piloting their solutions in schools and bringing them to market. The backbone of the project is a small-sized consortium of 3 experienced partners: high Open Call Management expertise by FBA; proven Business Acceleration methodology by ISDI; Future Classroom Lab validation system and wide network of education stakeholders by EUN. Engagement of other relevant players will be secured via: Digital Learning Stakeholder Group consisting of key education players (knowledge, resources and data); a multidisciplinary pool of experts, mentors and practitioners working hand in hand with the selected EdTech Trials; agreements with schools across Europe participating in classroom pilots.

I4MS Tools and Technologies for Transformation (I4MS4Ts) contributes to I4MS ecosystem structuration and visibility. It collaborates with Innovation Actions, Digital Innovation Hubs and other related networks (SAE, EFFRA, EIT Manufacturing, Blueprint for Sectoral Cooperation on Skills: etc.) to solve the challenges faced by tech suppliers and public bodies (innovation support/economic development agencies) when trying to accelerate digital take up by manufacturing SMEs and midcaps in Europe. While sustaining and enhancing the work done in previous I4MS Phases, I4MS4Ts will contribute to a more efficient, collaborative and clustered ecosystem structure and will make use of best practises from early adopters to reach the late majority of manufacturing SMEs. The CSA will: (1) provide I4MS Innovation Actions and network of DIHs with tools (raise awareness materials, brokering support, community engagement activities) to convey their value proposition and attract manufacturing SMEs/midcaps, particularly those from underrepresented regions and/or sectors; (2) put together I4MS offering (IA/DIHs demonstrators, tech & business services, trainings) and share it under an evidence-based approach (impact in competitiveness, best practises); (3) maintain and enlarge an engaged community and provide I4MS with a strong communication and dissemination platform under a joint brand. This work will contribute to solve I4MS challenges, increasing sectoral and regional coverage of the initiative and encouraging national/regional financing entities to dedicate resources to support most promising Application Experiments and to consolidate I4MS work locally. A lean consortium of 3 expert entities (FBA, MWCapital, TEC) will guarantee a smooth connection with previous Phases of I4MS and other initiatives and networks, a clear vision and high-quality community engagement, identification and characterisation of I4MS assets and best practises, targeted upskilling, brokering and communication.

Self-sovereign identity (SSI) promises to empower European citizens with new means to manage privacy, to eliminate logins, and to enjoy much faster and safer electronic transactions via the internet as well as in real life. SSI promises to empower European organisations to speed up, secure and automate transactions with customers, suppliers and partners, resulting in tens of billions of euros savings annually on administrative costs in Europe. SSI promises to drive a new business ecosystem with thousands of new jobs, new job categories and new business opportunities for existing and new European companies. SSI is not a self-fulfilling promise. While so-called SSI ‘solutions’ are popping up all over the world, the vast majority has a local scope, i.e. they solve a problem in a specific domain, they do not scale (at every level they need to, e.g. at the technical, process, information and business levels), and scarcely interoperate. Addressing these issues is a top priority for the eSSIF-Lab project. eSSIF-Lab (European Self-Sovereign Identity Framework Laboratory) is a lab-to-market project for ICT-24 subtopic 1-b “strengthening internet trustworthiness with electronic identities”, that facilitates the further development, integration and adoption of SSI technologies through a cascade funding approach targeting innovative companies developing SSI based solutions. eSSIF-Lab is championed by leading experts in SSI technologies, cascade funding, business acceleration and continuous deployment of open-source software. eSSIF-Lab will award 62 subgrants in 2 types of open calls, 1 targeting technical enhancements and extensions of the SSI framework (20 subgrants, for SMEs, startups, self-employed individuals, academic innovators, and innovators from larger organisations), and 2 targeting SSI business and social innovations and applications (42 subgrants, for SMEs and startups). The project will provide business and technical support to integrate SSI technology with market propositions, and to accelerate SSI-related businesses and social applications. The outreach though the open calls and the prominent position in the emerging SSI community will enable the eSSIF-Lab consortium to advance the broad uptake of SSI as a next generation open and trusted digital identity solution.

NGI-POINTER contributes to the human-centric revolution of the internet architecture by discovering NGI Architects who bring new protocols, Open software and hardware that are used to manage the internet in various use case areas: Privacy-by-design; Internet of Things; Network optimization; Virtualization and isolation; Limitations in the TCP/IP protocol suite; eCommerce security; Autonomous Network operations and control; Energy Efficiency. NGI-POINTER will leverage in Big Data Analytics technology provided by Linknovate to profile and scout 1.000+ oustanding researchers worldwide. FundingBox - European leader in Financial Support to Third Parties - will manage the open call mechanism on its 17.500 members strong platform. Aarhus University - a Top-100 University in the world - brings expertise in business mentoring and connections with more that 5.000 Internet researchers. Digital Workx provides the technical expertise for software and hardware standardization and ties with more that 65.000 engineers and Open Software developers around the world that are part of the Internet of Things Network. NGI-POINTER will provide the building blocks the pillars for a technical revolution of the internet architecture towards a more efficient, scalable, secure and resilient internet.