BOWI stands for Boosting Widening Digital Innovation Hubs. BOWI aims to build a digital innovation hub (DIH) network based on experience and practice sharing. A network that will support companies in turning their most innovative projects to life, aid investors in discovering the leaders of digital revolution and help development agencies understand the needs of industry. The Horizon 2020 project BOWI is aligned with the European Commission’s Smart Anything Everywhere (SAE) initiative. This initiative aims to support European companies through to advanced digitalisation solutions that should be available to any company regardless of its location. Key elements of the SAE initiative are the digital innovation hubs (DIHs) – one-stop shops for companies seeking to improve their business or service with digital solutions. These hubs bring together companies that offer state-of-the-art solutions and take up the challenge of finding the answers to complex problems.

The creation of this Virtual Demonstration Centre was initialised within the CHAIN REACTIONS project from the Interreg Central Europe project which aims to increase the innovation capacity of industrial companies. The main idea is to absorb new knowledge and turn it into competitive edge and business value, growth and profits. The project focuses on a few key sectors based on their embedding in regional smart specialisation strategies. The Regional Development Agency of Pilsen region is responsible for Advanced manufacturing sector. In this sector we are realising together with other partners the Virtual Demonstration Centre pilot activity, which is a place where innovative technologies or methods are displayed, with the aim to enable potential users (e.g. SMEs) to get familiar with them and evaluate a potential implementation in theirs productions. The content of the virtual democenter is divided into several technological sections, which are: Additive technologies, Automation and robotisation, Objects digitisation, Digital twins, Virtual and augmented reality and Virtual prototyping.