Supporting women’s mobility and sustainable cultural tourism with
data
Publication Date/Time
2022-08-12T07:00:00+00:00
Interview with EU Datathon 2021 finalist ITER IDEA
At the EU Datathon 2021, ITER IDEA [https://www.iter-idea.com/]
presented their project Wonder Wanderlust Women
[https://eu-www.iter-idea.com/intro], a portal facilitating women’s
mobility in Europe. Targeting young women, the platform helps users to
search for education and work opportunities across countries. They can
indicate their preferences (such as field of study, languages or
budget), which are then matched with specific areas and regions in
Europe. Wonder Wanderlust Women won first prize in the EU Datathon
2021 [https://op.europa.eu/en/web/eudatathon/home] challenge ‘An
economy that works for people’, along with the Public Choice Award.

We recently talked with the ITER IDEA team about the life of Wonder
Wanderlust Women after the competition and about their new project
supported by REACH [https://www.reach-incubator.eu/about-reach/] (the
EU-funded European incubator for trusted and secure data value
chains).

 

YOUR EU DATATHON PROJECT WAS A HUGE SUCCESS. WHAT HAPPENED AFTER THE
COMPETITION?

Since the finale of the EU Datathon
[https://op.europa.eu/en/web/eudatathon], our project has evolved by
forging essential synergies with international organisations. One of
our team members, Sara Baroni, became a brand ambassador for WomenX
Impact [https://www.womenximpact.com/], one of the most renowned
international organisations working on female empowerment issues. The
EU Datathon 2021 also had a significant impact on our organisation.
The team expanded, acquired new data analysis skills and had the
chance to improve services, making them available for other great
initiatives. Finally, the contest helped us sharpen our vision and
transform ourselves into the company we would like to become.

 
[https://data.europa.eu/sites/default/files/img/media/image1.jpg]
_Team ITER IDEA (from left to right: Sara Baroni, Matteo Carbone and
Guido Mazza) at the EU Datathon 2021._

 

WHAT ARE YOU PLANNING NEXT WITH WONDER WANDERLUST WOMEN?

Currently, the platform is going through a deep rebranding process.
Also, together with Sara and WomenX Impact, we are working to showcase
our cloud solution during the upcoming events planned by this
organisation. Our goal is also to embrace new opportunities to raise
funds and social awareness. Furthermore, to fit the scope to promote
the solution, we have established new collaborations with European
universities, companies and certification centres. Alongside Wonder
Wanderlust Women, we are also developing a new project addressing
topics of cities’ mobility, sustainability and cultural
destinations. It was selected to participate in the REACH incubator
programme [https://www.reach-incubator.eu/resource-hub/].

 
[https://data.europa.eu/sites/default/files/img/media/image2_1.png]
_User interface of the Wonder Wanderlust Women application._

 

 

CONGRATULATIONS! WHAT IS THE PROJECT ABOUT?

Our solution POInt&Go creates a digital touchpoint between local
public administrations and service providers operating in their cities
in various strategic areas: culture and tourist destinations, mobility
and the organisation of urban spaces. The service supports the
objectives of involving tourists and citizens by profiling and
monitoring the movement flows of tourist destinations and during
crowded events. POInt&Go will offer interactive dashboards driven by
AI capabilities and location technologies to improve data analysis on
events, including attendees’ perceptions and a better geolocated
profile of the targeted users.

 
[https://data.europa.eu/sites/default/files/img/media/image5_0.png]
_Prototype of the application POInt&Go._

 

COULD YOU TELL US MORE ABOUT YOUR PARTICIPATION IN THE REACH INCUBATOR
PROGRAMME?

REACH is a second-generation big data incubator, aiming to accelerate
data-driven innovation in Europe, towards the vision of the common
European data space
[https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/strategy-data] and
developing the European data market [https://datalandscape.eu/about].
We proposed our solution in Play&Go Experience’s challenge:
‘Social and induced perception of the tourist territorial resources
of a destination’
[https://www.reach-incubator.eu/project/social-and-induced-perception-of-the-tourist-territorial-resources-of-a-destination/].
POInt&Go can measure this perception thanks to data obtained from
augmented reality experiences designed to involve tourists and
visitors in discovering attractions inclusively. Investigations have
shown that the introduction of elements of gamification and augmented
reality involves tourists more, favours the discovery of new
destinations in the city and qualifies areas of interest for tourism
and cultural purposes.

 
[https://data.europa.eu/sites/default/files/img/media/image4_0.png]
_Guido Mazza, co-founder of ITER IDEA, presenting POInt&Go at CEA List
in Paris._

 

WHAT ROLE DOES DATA SHARING PLAY IN POINT&GO?

Each reality operates in the world of smart communities, working hard
to profile users and improve services in local communities. POInt&Go
can achieve these aims by relying on start-ups, partners and data from
all over the world, bringing all this to local communities. The
concept is to enable new models of collaboration between companies and
public administrations through the safe and transparent sharing of
data from multiple different industries which share common goals. In
fact, we also decided to participate in the REACH Consortium as a data
provider.

 

WHAT IS THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE FOR YOU IN THIS PROJECT?

Technically speaking, the most ambitious challenge is to create a
platform capable of ensuring the characteristics of a data value
chain, enabling a secured, scalable and sustainable data exchange
between multiple stakeholders and industries. The experience gained
working as cloud engineers, also from the EU Datathon 2021, is
certainly a competitive advantage. In addition, we can leverage the
technology of some of the most innovative research centres in Europe.
We are working hard to include the partners’ needs into our vision
without losing the original design and socially impactful value
proposition. We think this is a crucial and challenging balance needed
to grow our proposal and reach more providers.

Therefore, we are always looking to integrate more data, such as
comments and ratings collected from the audience during events (city
tours, exhibitions) or even statistics about the usage of shared
mobility in cities. We invite any providers of such data (companies,
municipalities) to get in touch with us. All the data providers
joining at this stage will get the chance to be showcased as a use
case at the REACH Pitch Day
[https://agenda.deusto.es/en/reach-pitch-day-productos-basados-en-datos-a-problemas-industriales/]
in Bilbao on 28 and 29 September and in several international events
organised by the REACH Consortium.

 

_If you are a company or a municipality and you would like to support
ITER IDEA as data provider in the development of POInt&Go, send an
email to __info@iter-idea.com__._
