IDENER.AI recently hosted the physical Kick-off Meeting for HARMONI, a Horizon Europe project it coordinates. The initiative brings together diverse disciplines and advanced technologies to tackle the growing impact of natural and technological disasters (NaTech). The memory of the Valencia DANA remains vivid in Spain, serving as a painful reminder of societal vulnerability and the urgent need for integrated, science-based, and technology-driven solutions to anticipate, mitigate, and respond to such events. Notably, HARMONI was the only proposal selected across Europe in its specific call.

As the project coordinator, IDENER.AI manages the overall project execution and coordination within WP7. Beyond administrative leadership, the company drives the core technical development of the project by leading the Hybrid NaTech Decision Assessment (HNDA) system in WP4, which serves as the core decision-support tool for crisis response. This technical responsibility involves designing AI algorithms based on Deep Reinforcement Learning and Federated Transfer Learning, integrating human expertise into automated decision-making, applying multi-objective optimization for Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) strategies, and developing the platform’s overarching interoperability architecture.

During the meeting, all 13 consortium partners aligned on the project’s vision, objectives, and 48-month roadmap. The working framework, governance structure, and internal communication protocols were defined and agreed upon in Task 7.1, while the technical interdependencies between Work Packages were mapped to identify clear integration points. Furthermore, initial activities for WP1 were officially launched, focusing on requirements elicitation, NaTech data source identification, and interoperability framework design. Finally, use case requirements were discussed with the five pilot sites in Spain, Türkiye, Greece, Italy, and Romania, successfully establishing the baseline for future demonstration activities.