ZABALA launches Kaila, a smart innovation ecosystems platform

In today’s dynamic and highly digital context, it is essential to have agile and open innovation processes that allow companies to test their solutions at an early stage, reach the market quickly and be one step ahead of competitors. To achieve this, collaborative processes must be organised with other actors of the innovation ecosystem, complementary to the “knowledge value chain.”

ZABALA introduces Kaila, the first intelligent platform focused on the identification and interconnection of the different innovation actors in Europe.

Kaila has several functionality layers that will be progressively launched on the market to promote open innovation and cover all the needs of the different actors in the innovation ecosystem.

The European Commission invests billions of euros annually in research and innovation through its various public funding programmes. However, information about what these funding opportunities are, or the projects and organisations that receive funding, appears in different ways on different websites and comes from many different data sources. Because of this, end users face difficulties in locating specific information, and much time and resources are spent searching for and processing information.

Kaila Analytics

KAILA Analytics integrates data from the main European Open Data sources such as the EU Open Data Portal, programmes like Eurostars or LIFE, or even CORDIS, among others, and integrates them into a single source. Thanks to a powerful search engine and complex algorithms, it is capable of producing highly accurate aggregated results on many levels: how European agents are innovating, with whom they are collaborating, on which subjects they are innovating, what funds they are obtaining, and what funding opportunities exist in the future for each technology or sector. This is complemented by a powerful user interface that facilitates analysis, as well as automated reporting with specific queries. Finally, through its alert system and search manager, it sends users updates on any relevant news  and other content as ebooks, in their areas of interest.

Creating a community of value

Kaila’s functionalities are not limited to its search engine and analytical capacities. In fact, for the developers, Kaila’s main strength lies in its ability to generate and grow a whole Community of value around Innovation in Europe. End-users such as entrepreneurs, innovative companies, researchers, institutions, organisations, or any individual interested in exploring the European innovation ecosystem, can register and become part of the community of innovative entities that interact through Kaila.

A part of ZABALA’s digitalisation strategy

KAILA came to life as a main part of ZABALA’s Digitisation Strategy. In fact,  the platform originates from an ambitious internal digital innovation project that sought to offer new sources of value to customers at a European level, complementing ZABALA’s current services and responding to the challenges of innovative entities. Using Machine Learning techniques and through a refined recommendation system, users can discover the key areas, organisations and projects in Europe that are relevant to them, according to their profile and interests. This way, and based on data, the user can obtain and build his/her own personalised Innovation Ecosystem.

Next steps

Through a subscription-based business model and a powerful analytical and recommendation system, Kaila has been launched with the aim of becoming the professional network for innovators in Europe. At ZABALA, we are currently developing new functionalities through the Kaila Connect module that will soon be launched in order to further expand the capabilities of ecosystem building and to enhance direct interaction between members.