The i2CAT Foundation enhances the live-event experience at ISE 2024

22/01/2024

i2CAT Foundation attended Integrated Systems Europe (ISE) for the first time to present how holoportation, the centre’s patented technology DOWI, 5G, AI, and blockchain act as facilitators of enhanced experiences for attendees at live events. ISE visitors at i2CAT’s booth learned how the centre’s technological research and innovation activities can be applied to accessibility, content distribution and production, immersive experiences or unified communications. You can see the photos of our booth here!

In this video, Cristina Esteve from the Knowledge and Technology Marketing team explains how i2CAT enhanced the live experience. Sergi Fernández, the Media Internet area director, explains the technologies developed in our research centre related to what was shown at ISE this year.

By applying i2CAT’s holoportation solution HoloMIT, invited artists could go onstage without moving from their homes, appear next to the main artist on a screen and sing in synch. DOWI, a patented technology by i2CAT, could control network parameters and unbalanced access points to guarantee a stable and balanced network for the public. Softwarisation and 5G would be essential to minimize hardware connections like audio, video or lighting, and AI would improve monitoring and decision-making for the professionals working at the event. Finally, Zero-knowledge testing (ZKP) allows organisers to verify information securely and privately without attendees revealing unnecessary data. A renovated and improved experience based on advanced digital technologies.

According to Gianluca Cernigliaro, VR/AR technical director at i2CAT, “XR technologies are the present and the future for media applications. Immersive content, such as volumetric video, can be used to reconstruct real-life content, such as buildings, objects or people. Such technologies can bring together people remotely located, as holograms projected in a Mixed Reality scenario, or reconstruct digital twins of urban areas, factory plants, airports or others to run simulations or for specific interventions. Moreover, immersive technologies and AI are building a synergy, improving the quality of the results as never seen before.”

The i2CAT Foundation’s multi-technology approach allows for a broad perspective on various innovations that can help MediaTech companies and providers offer a superior experience for their clients. i2CAT has research and deployment experience in technologies like volumetric video, 5G, 6G, IoT, satellite, trustworthy AI, Data Spaces, cybersecurity, blockchain, virtualisation, edge and cloud computing. The confluence of these technologies opens new opportunities for established and emerging markets.

For Miquel Ángel Pérez, director of Knowledge and Technology Marketing at i2CAT, “audiovisual contents have always posed a very rich and varied set of technological challenges for organisations devoted to Internet research, whether due to data volume, latency requirements, content privacy, or copyright issues. As artificial intelligence and new communication networks intertwine, this moment is a unique opportunity to contribute to the next wave of innovation in the Media industry.”

During the ISE days, we received the visit of Roger Torrent, Minister of the Ministry of Business and Labour from the Government of Catalonia, and the Secretary of Business and Competitiveness of the Ministry of Business and Labour and Director of Business Strategy at the Catalan Agency for Competitiveness, Albert Castellanos.

We also talked with Daniel Esteban-Ferrer, founder and CEO of the private company VRAIn, ​​with whom i2CAT collaborates. The company uses Virtual Reality and Artificial Intelligence for disruptive 3D bioimage visualization and analysis to reduce diagnostic errors. Aiming to provide medical improvements with innovative technology, VRAIn is trying to achieve rendering in the cloud, an aspect in which i2CAT is helping them, allowing them to use more power and learn from all the centre’s research lines, recognizing the value of the Catalan research ecosystem.

i2CAT was located at the Generalitat de Catalunya Pavillion, booth 26.