3D Printing and Digital Fabrication

Date de clôture : 28 juin 2016  
APPEL À PROJET CLÔTURÉ

1 INTRODUCTION

The FABulous project, currently active under the Seventh Framework programme of the European Community for research, technological development and demonstration activities contributing to the creation of the European research area and to innovation (2007-2013), calls for project proposals for its third Open Call.

This Guide for Applicants presents a brief overview of the context and approach of the FABulous acceleration program and details all the information needed to guide you in preparing a proposal for FABulous 4.0 Open Call 3. It provides instructions on structuring and submitting your proposal as well as information on the eligibility and evaluation criteria.

1.1 Overview of FI-PPP

The Future Internet Public-Private Partnership Programme (FI-PPP) is an industry-led and user-driven innovation programme with a focus on Europe, forming part of the EU’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7). The total investment by industry and the public sector is 500 million euro (including 300 million euro European Commission contribution). The programme is founded on the vision of a sustainable economy and an inclusive society in Europe and its main aims are to:

• Increase the effectiveness of business processes and of the operation of infrastructures supporting applications in sectors such as transport, health, or energy;

• Derive possible innovative business models in these sectors, strengthening the competitive position of European industry in domains like telecommunication, mobile devices, software and service industries, content providers and media.

FI-PPP applies an industry-driven, holistic approach encompassing R&D on network and communication infrastructures, devices, software, services and media technologies while at the same time promotes their experimentation and validation in real application contexts, bringing together demand and supply and involving users early in the research lifecycle.

The FI-PPP programme is performed in three phases from 2011 to 2016 each of which has specific goals and objectives:

• Phase I: establishing the technology foundation, defining "use case scenarios" in different industry sectors, making an inventory of available (public) infrastructures via capacity building, and programme support;

• Phase II: developing use case pilots and platforms and setting up infrastructures;

• Phase III: expansion of the use cases by developing applications and services and

expansion of the technology foundation.

FIWARE is the cornerstone project of the FI-PPP, aiming to build an open Core Platform of the Future Internet. The FIWARE platform will dramatically increase Europe’s Information and Communications Technology competitiveness by introducing an innovative infrastructure 

that enables cost-effective creation and delivery of versatile digital services, high quality of service and security guarantees.

FIWARE will deliver a novel service infrastructure, building upon Generic Enablers, which offer reusable and commonly shared functions making it easier to develop Future Internet Applications in multiple sectors. The FIWARE Catalogue provides information, documentation and tools you need as a developer to start using a Generic Enabler Implementation.

FIWARE Lab is a working instance of FIWARE, enabling developers to setup the basic virtual infrastructure needed to run applications that make use of the APIs provided by FIWARE Generic Enablers.

FIWARE Accelerate is a Future Internet Accelerator Program comprising 16 Future Internet Accelerators (of which FABulous is part) in different areas of application. In total the programme has a budget of 80 million euros for direct funding, mentoring and networking to create innovative Internet-based applications and services building on FIWARE technologies.

The FI-PPP covers a wide scope of usage areas through a set of use case projects that make use of the FIWARE platform in setting up trials of advanced Future-Internet-based services and domain specific applications, also referred to as Specific Enablers (SE). Some examples of FI-PPP usage areas and use case projects are presented below:

Transport, logistics and agri-food

FINEST (Phase 1)

SmartAgriFood (Phase 1)

FIspace (Phase 2)

Social connected TV, mobile city services, and video games

FI-CONTENT (Phase 1)

FI-CONTENT 2 (Phase 2)

Manufacturing

FITMAN (Phase 2)

1.2 Overview of FABulous project

FABulous started in September 2014 and has a total duration of 28 months. The total funds to be distributed correspond to 5.44 million Euro.

So far, FABulous issued 2 Open Calls selecting 80 startups to develop business prototypes and applications.

FABulous is now launching its third and last Open Call targeting startups, SMEs and web entrepreneurs, aiming to fund innovative ideas related to 3D Printing and Digital Fabrication that make use of FIWARE technologies.

FABulous project aims at creating and supporting a FI-service ecosystem for 3D printing (3DP) technologies that bridges the gap between ICT , Creative and Manufacturing 

Industries. FABulous promotes the use and adoption of the FI-PPP Core Platform, building upon the FIWARE technology, i.e. FIWARE Generic Enablers (GEs), Specific Enablers (SEs) and domain specific platforms, in particular FITMAN, and FIcontent.

FABulous will act as the European 3D printing accelerator aiming to nurture the business innovation and web-entrepreneurship ecosystem for 3D printing in Europe, bringing together FIWARE assets, infrastructures and investors with innovators and entrepreneurs in the field of design, manufacturing, logistics and content-based services. FABulous aims at leveraging support services and capacities towards web entrepreneurs and business innovators in the field of 3D printing digital businesses.

2 OBJECTIVES OF THE CALL

The call aims to fund any service / application or product under the concept of 3D Printing for Digital Manufacturing for all kinds of sectors virtual and physical related to additive manufacturing.

FABulous Open Call 3 aims at leveraging startups, SMEs and web entrepreneurs to develop services / applications with a clear societal and economic value for 3D printing.

In order to develop these services / applications, applicants shall build upon the FIWARE technology and may also use case projects of FI-PPP (i.e. FIWARE Generic Enablers, Specific Enablers and/or domain specific platforms) in order to address challenges extracted from real life digital manufacturing business cases. FABulous will enable SMEs and web- entrepreneurs to trial their innovative services in collaboration with creative and industrial communities. This will contribute to FABulous’ overall objective of establishing solutions that help connecting ICT advanced services to Future Internet services with a particular focus on 3D Printing.

Applicants are therefore encouraged to navigate through the FIWARE assets (FIWARE GEs catalogue and Use Cases SEs catalogues) and explore the ones best matching their project ideas. For example, the GE: 3D-UI-XML3D6 could be a relevant FIWARE asset to be utilised in 3D printing projects. Use Case projects such as FITMAN7, and FIcontent8 could provide more options related to 3D printing domain (in terms of technology to be used). The projects to be selected for funding under FABulous Open Call 3 shall liaise with these projects and incorporate developed components and solutions and possibly also services provided by these.

Annex III presents an overview of FITMAN and FIcontent technologies dedicated to manufacturing, and media and content respectively. Information is given on the platforms and respective SEs of each project.

Applicants are encouraged to incorporate / build on the FITMAN and FIcontent technologies for the development of the 3D printing applications and services. However, their use is not 

mandatory – as already mentioned, applicants shall make use of any FIWARE technology best matching their 3D printing related project ideas.

2.1 Innovation for 3D Printing and Digital Fabrication

FABulous welcomes innovative services and applications that provide innovative business propositions in very diverse application sectors such as:

• Industry 4.0 and ICT for manufacturing

• Consumer Goods & Lifestyle

• Textile

• Jewellery

• Art & Design (Fashion, Architecture, etc...)

• Aerospace, Automotive Manufacturing (metals, plastics, multi-material) & Engineering

• Bio & Healthcare

• Architecture

• Food

• Any other

All proposals will be evaluated in equal terms.

Applicants will have to present sound proposals for solutions based on the Generic and Specific Enablers (GEs and SEs) provided by FIWARE as well as sound business considerations. The solutions, products and applications developed shall - above all - be sustainable and applicable in real business life. Applicants will have to already present at their proposals the market potential of the FABulous 4.0 service / application they plan to develop.

2.2 General conditions of the call

FABulous Open Call 3 aims at funding 20 projects to enter the accelerator.

The projects will be technically monitored by the FABulous Assessment and Labelling Panel supported by external mentors. The panel will consist of 10 members combining both external experts and FABulous consortium members.

During the 4 months acceleration, both Business Model (BM) validation and prototype building and BM re-validation with prototype will be part of the process. Business Model Canvas (BMC) validation will be iterative. Other activities include demo days, match-making, finding investors, etc.

2.3 Available funding

FABulous total funds to be distributed correspond to 5.44 million Euro.

FABulous already funded 80 startups to develop prototypes services and /or applications and 20 of them startups are still being accelerated.

FABulous will support 100% of the project costs up to 30.000€ for the selected projects under Open Call 3.

(truncated: for more details click on the public link below)