#48fortheFuture is uniting EU and US tech communities to tackle the most burning topics that had an overwhelming impact on the global economy due the COVID-19 pandemic.

Skeleton Technologies – a Global Cleantech 100 company and the largest European manufacturer of ultracapacitor-based energy storage – announced today it has completed a €41.3 million financing round. All existing investors participated in the equity raise and were joined by notable European entrepreneurs and international investors. 

Hydrogen will change the world of mobility and logistics. Exactly how is being investigated in the project “WESTKÜSTE100”. With a holistic approach and 30 million euros in funding from the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy, the aim is to make various forms of mobility, as well as industry and building management, increasingly emissions-free.

Hypermotion, which would have been Messe Frankfurt's first hybrid event at the Frankfurt exhibition grounds from 10 to 12 November, will be purely digital due to the rapidly increasing number of infections.

The community can look forward to numerous online sessions and talks in multiple conferences, and they will be able to follow it all from their laptop, tablet or smartphone at home or at work. In addition, some 50 companies, sponsors, start-ups and universities from the fields of smart logistics, supply chains and future mobility will be presenting their products and solutions – including live in the form of pitches and presentations

Estonian-initiated Garage48 hackathon invites startups and enterpreneurs to build some awesome rpototypes within 48 hours (usually at weekends) to improve the future of the wood, empower the young for green economy and find future solutions with the support of U.S. Embassy.

The unique Soletair demo plant developed by VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland and Lappeenranta University of Technology (LUT) uses carbon dioxide to produce renewable fuels and chemicals. The pilot plant is coupled to LUT’s solar power plant in Lappeenranta and uses solar energy for CO2 extraction and hydrogen producing.

The aim of the project is to demonstrate the technical performance of the overall process and produce 200 litres of fuels and other hydrocarbons for research purposes. This concerns a one-of-a-kind demo plant in which the entire process chain, from solar power generation to hydrocarbon production, is in the same place.

As part of Singapore’s efforts to enhance its nation-wide COVID-19 testing capabilities, ABB’s high-precision robots have been deployed in a new automated laboratory system, known as the Rapid Automated Volume Enhancer (RAVE).

The system automates some of the manual steps usually required in sample processing. Two sets of RAVE and associated equipment can process an industry-topping throughput of close to 4,000 samples a day. RAVE also reduces test contamination and infection risks for laboratory workers.

The development of artificial intelligence and machine-learning technologies has allowed customer service tools such as chatbots, or chatter robots, to be on the upswing in the recent years. Such virtual assistants are a versatile solution for customer service in companies and public authorities of all sizes.

Virtual chat assistants are rapidly becoming as self-evident and integral part of the reality of life as cell phones or social networks. By 2024, the chatbot market share is expected to grow by 30%.

Using approximately 2.6 million microscopy images of canine kidney cells, members of an international research group, containing contributors from Estonia and Russia have built and trained a deep learning model to better understand how cells grow and divide. This research opens a novel way to identify more quickly and more easily the cell cycle ‘clock’ for every cell that is essential to understand diseases like cancer. The methods and results of their work have now been published in the journal Molecular Systems Biology.

Cleveron will pilot its first self-service screen and parcel robot integration together with telecom company Telia in Estonia. Telia will set up a “self-service pod” in a small town, where the company’s clients can connect with customer service through a Cleveron self-service screen, pay for their goods on-site, and receive the items from the connected Cleveron parcel robot. The pilot aims to bring Telia’s services closer to its customers in areas, where having traditional service offices is not viable anymore due to the small population and increasing costs.