On Friday, February 21, 2025, the Regional Dissemination Event of the PROACTsme Project, “Applied Data-Science and AI for proactive SME service” (INTERREG EUROPE) of ANATOLIKI S.A., Organization for Local Development, took place at Alexandria Innovation Zone, Thessaloniki, from 10.00 to 13.00.
PROACTsme aims to improve policy instruments that work towards improving e-Government capabilities, enabling proactiveness, and thus making public services ‘smarter’.
The Project focuses on digital transformation to achieve a more personalized and proactive service, leveraging the potential of big data, automated administrative action, and Artificial Intelligence (AI). Special emphasis is placed on data use and management, interoperability principles and the latest developments in data analysis such as forecasting business needs and promoting services ” Just In Time”, creating public-private data sharing and business intelligence ecosystems. The Region of Central Macedonia participates in the project as a Partner of ANATOLIKI S.A. with the CIP Central Macedonia.
The RDE of PROACTsme started with an introduction about the project by Ms. Vasso Papadopoulou, Director of Planning and Management of European Programs of ANATOLIKI S.A. and with a greeting from the Vice-Regional Head of Digital Governance of the Region of Central Macedonia, Mr. Nikolaos Tzollas.
The first part of the event started with the presentation of the project and the first results of the Joint Study by Mrs. Eleni Iordanidou, MSc Forester-Environmentalist, project team member of ANATOLIKI S.A. Then there was a presentation of the project’s good practices from Greece and the Region of Central Macedonia and in particular, the CUTLER project of EKETA, by Mr. Anastasios Papazoglou Halikias, Researcher at the Institute of Information and Communication Technologies (CERTH – ITI) and the Sustainable Urban Development Observatory of Thessaloniki by Mrs. Evdokia Maggou, representative of the Independent Directorate for Innovation and Entrepreneurship Support from the Region of Central Macedonia.
The second part of the event started with an introduction from PALMOS Analysis’ research on SMEs in the region and continued with a presentation of the Catalan SME support model ‘HelpEmpresa’, a good practice of the project, by Ms. Naya Tselepi, Dr. Human Geography and Project Manager from ANATOLIKI S.A.. This was followed by Ms. Maria Goulaptsi, Head of the Department of Innovation and Entrepreneurship Support, who developed the possibilities of integrating the previous model by the Region of Central Macedonia.
At the end, there was time for Q&A and discussion on the challenges and opportunities for the digital transformation of SMEs today as well as the potential for the operation of a support mechanism by the Region of Central Macedonia.
More information about the project can be found here and here.
