All the SPRING partners met in Paris on 12 and 13 February 2020, within Inria’s offices, to celebrate the start of the project and setup the framework of the (numerous) upcoming tasks.
27 people participated in this two-day meeting, including of course all the designated Work Package Leaders as well as the Privacy and Ethics Guarantor from the 8 institutions partnering in SPRING. After a quick self-presentation from everyone, a round table allowed partners to detail their expertise and role in the project.
Over the span of the two days, all important technical, managerial and organisational items of the SPRING project were reviewed:
- Robot manufacturing schedule, specifications and details;
- Software integration procedure and architecture;
- Data collection and security;
- Ethical aspects;
- Internal and external communication channels;
- Voting on membership for decision making bodies.
In addition, the group had the chance to receive a lessons learned presentation of two previous EU projects involving one of the partners, Heriot-Watt University.
The evening of the first day was the occasion for everyone to visit the premises of the Broca Day Hospital, where the experiments will take place. The morning of the second day was used to implement a brainstorming session, based on the knowledge acquired while visiting the hosptital, to precise the use cases the robot will need to satisfy.
Of course, being in Paris, all the participants were able to enjoy fine-yet-reasonably-priced French food to kickstart lively discussions!
