The GeoAI4EI project kick-off event took place from 26–28 August 2026 at the Institute for Geoinformatics (IfGI), University of Münster, Germany. The meeting officially launched the 4-year, €8 million Horizon Europe initiative coordinated by the OpenGeoHub Foundation. GeoAI is the new sub-field of Machine Learning where geographic data and geographic and temporal relations are integrated into AI so that the models become "spatially-aware" and fused with geospatial technologies. The GeoAI4EI project integrates diverse epidemiological and environmental/climatic data sources including Earth observation and socio-economic factors while strictly adhering to the EU AI Act and GDPR ethical standards. The project runs until June 2030 and aims at delivering open source solutions to improve modeling, user-experience / dashboards and use of risk mapping and scenario testing in operational work.
1. Who Participated
The event brought together all 11 consortium partner organizations (in person and virtually) alongside European Commission oversight and sister Horizon project representatives:
- Consortium Leadership & Coordination: OpenGeoHub (Tomislav Hengl, Leandro Parente, and technical/media teams) and CIRAD (Elena Arsevska, Mathieu Roche, Erwan Sachet, Maxime Tesch).
- Academic & Research Institutions: IfGI / University of Münster (Edzer Pebesma and local team), INRAE (Maguelonne Teisseire), Fondazione Edmund Mach (Giovanni Marini, Annapaola Rizzoli), University of Geneva (Olivia Keiser, Janne Estill), and ERGO (William Wint).
- SMEs & Industrial Partners: Avia-GIS (Guy Hendrickx, Tom Matheussen), Mundialis (Markus Neteler, Markus Metz), and VAGO Solutions (Daryoush Vaziri, David Golchinfar, Lucas Müller).
- Public Health Agencies: Istituto Superiore di Sanità (ISS - Luca Busani and team).
- European Commission / HaDEA representative.
- Sister Projects (Public Seminar Guests): PANDAI, AURORAI, and PREPAIR-VAC (European Vaccine Initiative).
2. What Was Discussed
The three-day meeting combined administrative setup, technical deep-dives, stakeholder co-production workshops, and public outreach:
- Project Structure & Implementation Blueprint: Re-examined work package responsibilities (WP1–WP7), delivery timelines, and governance requirements under EU frameworks (GDPR, EU AI Act, FAIR/CARE principles).
- Technical Demos & AI Methodologies:
- Status of GeoAI technology and spatial data needs across European health sectors.
- Technical demonstrations of domain-specific LLMs (VAGO) and open-source agentic coding tools (OpenGeoHub).
- Parallel working sessions defining integration pathways between the GeoAI Engine (WP5), Epidemic Intelligence Models (WP4), and the The Front-End solutions (WP6).
- Impact Pathway & ImpresS Co-Production: CIRAD led interactive group sessions implementing the ImpresS methodology to build the project’s impact narrative, establish key performance indicators (KPIs), and plan stakeholder co-design workshops.
- Public Seminar: An online webinar titled "AI for spatial epidemiology: 5 key challenges & 5 opportunities", bringing together GeoAI4EI and its sister Horizon Europe projects to discuss open-source transparency and cross-project collaboration.
3. Next Steps
The consortium established an immediate operational roadmap for Months 1–18:
- Digital Infrastructure & Communication Setup (M3 / Sept 2026): Finalize internal collaboration channels (Mattermost, GitLab/GitHub, Zenodo, Zotero) and launch the official project website and social media (Deliverable D7.1).
- Hop-On Candidate Finalization: Interview top-ranked candidate organizations and submit the selected Hop-On application by the portal deadline on 24 September 2026.
- Impact Narrative Validation (M6 / Dec 2026): Complete draft KPI baselines and validate the initial project impact narrative with stakeholders.
- First Horizon Deliverables (M9 / March 2027): Finalize and submit the initial Implementation Plan (D1.1), Data Management Plan (D1.3), Ethics Setup (D1.5), and Stakeholder Mapping (D7.2 & D7.3).
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