Abelium R&D

Please describe your company and your position there.

This project is part of the Prodex Experiment Arrangement from the European Space Agency. We as a University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Mathematics and Physics led the project.

For what projects/services did your company hire Abelium R&D, and what were your goals?

Abelium was our industrial partner responsible for developing and artificial intelligence approach to interpret the scientific data of the project. This involved preparation and selection of the data and a close interaction with us until the acceptable interpretation has been found.

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

Very high professional expertise in the field of artificial intelligence. We collaborated in this area before in other European Space agency projects and the expoerience was a very positive one. The same has been true this time.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

The data had to be adsorbed into the system which involved a development of suitable quality cuts. Then Abelium started with attempting to interpret the dataset using a variety of reference datasets and a multitude of approaches using different artificial intelligence approaches. Finally the results were evaluated with a range of stiatistical tests. At this point we had a weekly online meeting, commented on the results and the loop typically started again, until a satisfactory solution has been found.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

Abelium commited 3 people to the project. They all worked very closely with us on a time-scale of several months. All three have been contributing to all steps described above, but they devided tasks between themselves on a weekly bases, as needed by the progress of the project.

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

Abelium delivered an extensive software suite which is well documented and accesible on github. They also prodused an extensive technical report which describes the whole procedure and makes statistical evaluation of the results. Finally, they produced a database with all the inputs and outputs of their procedures. This materials have been delivered to the European Space Agency which approved the results in the matter of days - so the results were considered satisfactory.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

We had regular weekly online meetings with proper exchanges of emails and interim datafiles as needed. The interaction was were attentive, yet informal and taking care of a good working atmosphere.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

They have the field of expertise in aritifical intelligence and through various projects of the European Space agency that we were collaborating on. They are very flexible and able to adapt their approaches and solution according to the situation. It is very important that this company has a number of employees with a PhD in mathematics whoc now have an extensive experience to implement various artificial intelligence approaches to everything from logistics to scientific data. So: very high expertise, informal and candid communication, flexibility and delivery of results according to pre-agreed schedule are the key factors here.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

The experience is very positive, so I cannot think of any improvements at the moment.

Please describe your company and your position there.

The Academic and Research Network of Slovenia (Arnes) is a public institute that provides network services to research, educational and cultural organizations, and enables them to establish connections and cooperation with each other and with related organizations abroad. I work as an engineer in the Multimedia department.

For what projects/services did your company hire Abelium R&D, and what were your goals?

Implementation of a multipurpose multimedia solution for video on demand, live streaming, video conferences provisioning.

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

As an institution under government, we are committed to public service contracts, so we prepared a public service contract with detailed conditions and requirements where Abelium was selected as the most economical provider.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

We first introduced them to our previous solutions. Then we went together through our requirements and specifications and clarified any ambiguities. We prepared a timeline and workflow. We scheduled various meetings during the development so we were up to date with the progress the whole time and we also collaborated through our in-house software development platform. In the end they also helped us to migrate from the previous solution and provided us with detailed instructions of how to manage and deploy the application.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

We worked actively with three members of their team, they were project lead and software engineers.

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

We smoothly launched the application in production and replaced our previous solution. Our users (more than 200 thousand teachers, pupils, students, university professors etc.) were happy with the new solution and their feedback was very positive.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

Workflow turned out to be very effective, they responded quickly to our feedback and also helped with suggestions of their own.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

Although we had different requirements written in the specifications for our VOD and streaming video portal, they pointed out the shortcomings of this solution. And implemented a custom, more effective solution, despite that it would be easier for them to stick with specifications.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

Overall we were very satisfied with their approach to work, finding advanced and effective solutions, in fact, they exceeded our expectations in almost every aspect.

Please describe your company and your position there.

Public university in Slovenia - University of Primorska My position: rector.

For what projects/services did your company hire Abelium R&D, and what were your goals?

A complete IT solution for the 8th European Congress of Mathematics (https://8ecm.si/):

- webpage

- registration

- online payment

- abstract submission

- approval of submitted abstracts

- automatic creation of book of abstracts

- scheduling of 1058 contributions

- linking congress schedule with zoom webinar links

- automatic creation of certificates of participation based on type (invited participant, passive participant, participant with contribution, etc)

- personal profile pages for every of the 1771 participants

- statistical data (by research area, by country, by payment status, by research career status, etc)

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

We chose this vendor based on their past project and our previous collaboration - in my opinion this is an IT company with the best programming skills.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

Our collaboration was based on step by step requirements from our side as we were not full aware of all the needs. The number of participants was not clear from the beginning (at the end we had 1771 participants) and hence we did not require all automatic generation of different parts in the beginning.

They provided backpage in the way that were able to implement all our additional requirements. Due to Covid-19 the 8ECM progamme was broadcasted using the Zoom webinar platform.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

1 project manager, 2 developers, 1 designer, 1 accounted.

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

Congress participants loved the provided e-platform. We are very active in organization of scientific events and the number of emails with different questions/requests that we obtained this time was much lower than usually due to very clear and easy to used platform that was created by Abelium.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

We had daily stand-ups with their project manager who communicated with the rest of the team. There were a few unexpected delays (mostly due to covid-19) which were reported to us ahead of time so that we were able to reschedule other activities. For communication we used Zoom and phone. In case requested from our side a meeting was held in person on our location.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

They provided a professional site that is easy to use and update from our side.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

No.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We’re a state agency developing services for small and middle enterprises. We focus on compliance with Ministry of Economy policies, and we provide funds and other services. We help companies with investment and internationalization. I’m a project manager in the agency, involved in R&D processes and digitization. I have a small internal team of developers, and we’re closely involved with Abelium.

What challenge were you trying to address with Abelium R&D?

We were starting a digital transformation process of our company and services. We’d been mainly paper-based before, publishing only on our web page, and we wanted to provide completely digital services to allow companies to get funds directly through our system.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We’ve delivered three new applications in 2020, which are completely new to Slovenia and allow companies to do everything online without sending additional physical proofs. We started by making plans on what we could do and how we could approach this business model. Abelium made prototypes, followed by the actual development.

Our system offers access to the services of multiple government agencies. The user needs to create an account and give us permission to use their data with other ministries. This allows us to gather everything in one place, and it’s quite a unique approach in an otherwise orthodox environment.

Companies can easily apply for subsidies and get information. The platform is user friendly and as simple as possible, and people can approach us through various channels. We offer support through the web page, and there are phone numbers that they can call. Our aim is to not over-bureaucratize the system, and we hide the things that aren’t important. People have a clear path for using the platform.

What is the team composition?

We’ve mainly worked with Boris (Co-Founder & CEO), along with Alen (Co-Founder & CTO), several designers, and one marketer.

How did you come to work with Abelium R&D?

We heard about them from other clients of theirs. Abelium had the reputation of being flexible and not knowing how to build IT products, but also how to establish business models. We had initial interviews, discussing how we could improve things, and Abelium brought a lot of experience from working with other state entities. They understood how painful this transition could be for companies.

The main issue was improving the user experience of businesses working with the state, and we saw that Abelium had good ideas and a nonconventional approach. They were always looking for solutions for making our system viable.

How much have you invested with them?

The cost so far is around $500,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Abelium in late-2018. We’re currently working with them on a COVID-support portal for companies, and we plan to continue the collaboration after that. We have a lot more to do.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

We’ve completed several projects with Abelium, for different services, and we’re happy to have them as a partner. They’re very flexible and approachable, and we can always rely on them, even if we have short deadlines. The companies working with us can do everything online now and very quickly. During COVID, we managed to reduce subsidy application time to one month, from policy to use.

Our main KPI is the number of people using the system, and we’ve had a huge increase in users. We’re also collecting feedback on what we could do better. Everything is focused on making our users happy.

How did Abelium R&D perform from a project management standpoint?

We always have deadlines, and we have daily activity reviews. We’re always under time pressure, but we keep things under control.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They have a wide range of experience in fields for which we approached multiple companies. Abelium can help us with user feedback, they use the latest technologies, and they always have the best possible solution for the problems we’re facing. We’re always one step ahead of others. They don’t wait for us to ask for something; they always suggest things that can make our solutions better, which is really helpful at the proposal stage.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Abelium is a small company with big potential. They could provide us better support by increasing the size of their team, but there’s always a battle between time and finding the best possible team members.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

We don’t always have clear goals in terms of business strategy. If the customer knows what their approach and goal are, they’ll save time and money during the preparation and development of the project. It’s better to think a bit longer about the problem at first, and only then develop a solution. There were times when we had to go back and do it again.

Please describe your company and your position there.

My position: Project manager (co-owner) of GoOpti, a fast-growing Demand Responsive Transportation marketplace, providing innovative matching of passengers for shared and private transfers between airports and small and medium-sized remote towns and cities.

For what projects/services did your company hire Abelium R&D, and what were your goals?

There were many challenges to tackle at the beginning and concrete barriers to overcome since we were aware that the scalable back-end of the sales platform takes expertise & time to develop.

We had many product meetings and productive workshops, through which a transparent partnership evolved. We have defined our main pain-points on which they helped, with their team and services, as having knowledge of:

• customized (complicated) algorithms, experience, and know-how about those,
• the organizational optimization including pricing, logistics, and process automation (all is specific and scalable developed, but not visible from the outside to the end user – to whom, everything has to be seamless).

Additionally, to keep »the first mover advantage« on the market, we knew that we will need to handle also:

Effective (dynamic) pricing, pooling and risk management. - Customized algorithms: routing, scheduling optimization, process automation, payment processing, customer acquisition tools.

• Web (front-office and back-office) and mobile apps. 
• Allow defensibility against newcomers.
• Years of data gathering. ...and all the above was also delivered through their interdisciplinary team of innovative business model researchers and practitioners. Their consulting and advisory mentorship on this matter, as also in later phases help on the VC funding’s, were of priceless added value.

How did you select Abelium R&D and what were the deciding factors?

We scanned the IT-market and other scientific facilities in our region (not just in our country), since we knew that it is important to clearly define project specification, so we couldn’t hire »youngsters« or IT-firms with limited experience in custom software development, or firms with fixed pre-developed.

We knew, we need a custom development, appropriate for our needs, which will then best address the needs of our customers (based on our research and segmentation). And that can be achieved only with an agile, but senior committed team of interdisciplinary experts, that also understand the business side of the problems they are solving.

We selected Abelium through a recommendation from the IT-sector, their clearly presented references, diversified team of PhDs, which impressed us, and proven track record of long-term cooperation – as also applied science expertise knowledge was their biggest advantage in the process of decision making.

After first few meetings we already saw that they are thinking »out-of-the-box« and already started to ask the right question, through which we saw they do want to understand the right problem being fixed, before jumping into documenting and programming a solution we thought we need.

Trust was gained fast and we quickly became a good team, that resulted in agreed partnership also on the business model side and entering in the co-ownership structure. Since we are building an innovation, that can't be put into “bare numbers”.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

As described, through tight cooperation, we defined final business model to serve our USP: » Flexible and reliable as a personal car for the price of a bus, also on long distance routes. « That is why we have hired them to deliver:

• State-of-the-art optimization algorithm using machine learning. Meaning: 1. Dynamic pricing: transferring know-how of low-cost airlines to road transportation and upgraded with big data analytics and probability calculation. 2. Departure time and route optimization.
• Demand-responsive scaling (adding shuttles based on demand).
• Web/mobile sales platform and online access to customers.
• Customer pooling on long-distance – similar routes, similar desired travel time. …and they did. With excellence and also additional services that had emerged and were needed to be handled.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

As partners we mostly worked with their top-level people, the rest was handled internally on their side, so we are not familiar with the exact numbers (enough, I would say).

Which is again, a great advantage, to have a single-point-of-contact. Or in our case – three: (1) Alen Orbanič, Ph.D., CTO - R&D, mathematics, smart technologies, 12 years in the industry (2) Boris Horvat, Ph.D., CRO - ICT & logistics expert, 13 years in the industry. (3) Primož Lukšič, Ph.D., COO – Operations & payments expert, 10 years in the industry.

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

Development went (more or less) accordingly by the jointly agreed Project timeline at each phase - since it needed to be in-line also with the VCs expectations and other deals. Which results in positive outcomes, as:

1. Establishing regional centres in new markets: 2015: Italy and 2017: Spain
2. Expansion on new markets, (promotion, network)
3. Continuous improvement of the optimization algorithm, R&D
4. Setting HR, key personnel, support team, onboarding of the self-efficient internal R&D team

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timelines.

They operate with an agile mindset on all levels of cooperation. Lean is their “middle name” and being practical on the parts where we need to push forward is a feature you don't see often.

This is also our approach, why complicate if you can do it »KISS«? I can comment mostly from the PM-side since our partnership gives them the "authority" to manage and organize their tech stack with their DEV team. We used mostly Jira – for PM tasks, and kept the vivid documentation in the swagger account, so there are no hidden surprises later on.

The rest of "the hygienics" was also in-line with the current standards (using real-time communication tools, as also the basic but effective ones, like classical mails and calls …) – as indeed, other quality and safety assurance measures were always met.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

A unique combination of expertise in many areas of intelligent digital product development, a theoretical background that enables them to build on the top of novel theoretical results, and at the same time, practicality of tireless focusing on the problems that matter to the end users and execution.

Additionally, mostly their endless enthusiasm and curiosity in solving the real world-industry problems, while being always focused on the end-user (when we already forget why we are doing this), and are we focusing on the right problem or if we take a step back, what would change our decisions.

About their expertise and theoretical knowledge, their CVs can tell you even more – but the mindset and being at the same time also “human and reachable” are the characteristics you don’t see often.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

Since we are almost a family - with all that comes with that kind of (too?) tight connections – good & bad times during our joint venture story there is hardly something we haven't honestly and directly communicated with them jet - so our “recommendations” for their improvements« have already been met.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the CEO of Anteja ECG. We are a consulting firm.

What challenge were you trying to address with Abelium R&D?

We are undergoing a digitalization transformation and Abelium are our consultants. We had a clear idea of the platform and already had a prototype in place, but we wanted to step in with a bigger and more sophisticated team.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They reviewed what was done. They took the wireframes that we had done and then did the programming and did the software development for us.

We went through the idea and we provided them with the specific requirements, and they developed it accordingly. When there were any issues or discussions, we developed it together. They provided us with quite a bit of help on this when it came to what might work, what would be best, and what might not be that good.

What is the team composition?

Boris (CEO) is my main contact. I have also had some contact with his team who I have met several times, but I am not in close contact with them. I trust Boris to lead the team.

How did you come to work with Abelium R&D?

We have known each other for a long time. About five years ago, we worked on a project together which was also on the digitalization of the value chains. Before engaging with them, we also checked with people that worked with them previously.

Since we specialize in value chains, in the first project, we led the mapping and what had to be done and they did the whole programming for the software development. Then I started working more in Africa, and when opportunities came up, I asked them if they would be willing to work for us. They joined us for the past two developments.

How much have you invested in them?

We have spent close to $300,000 USD.

What is the status of this engagement?

For this project, we began working with them in October 2019, but we have worked with them in 2016 and 2017 as well.

We are going through several phases, and at the moment we have one product up and running and we are currently working on the second module which we hope to finish in October if everything will be okay.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

We do have a track record with Abelium. We also know several companies that they work with. They do good work for the government here as well and it seems like those projects were very successful.

We have helped them to adapt to more international business in Africa, and so far so good and we are happy.

How did Abelium R&D perform from a project management standpoint?

We have been using Zoom and we have weekly review meetings on Fridays. After COVID-19 we will schedule in-person meetings once every 14 days otherwise we will stick with Zoom as we find it very practical.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I like that they have a super-genius team of mathematicians and physics specialists. This was quite new for me as previously we were dealing with electro engineers and they were more youngsters aged 25 to 30.

The Abelium team has a super high IQ and a strong team that knows what they are doing. They are more experienced, and they are 40 plus. I feel they are a much better fit for our needs; maybe we understand each other better and there isn’t as much of a generation gap between us.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They are extremely high tech and are good at this. My suggestion would be to have a better understanding that sometimes people might not understand what high tech is about and they need more time to understand what it means when they start programming.

We are working in developing countries and we have been bringing Europeans and Americans to real developing countries where there isn’t internet all the time. You have to go backward after doing something sometimes, so it is a bit different. I think they are actually very good. They are software providers and I think they are super good.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of a cryptocurrency company.

What challenge were you trying to address with Abelium R&D?

Among other cryptocurrency related businesses, we offer a cryptocurrency exchange. We needed an expert in the field to develop customized and scalable software.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They structured and built the core building blocks of the trading software and implemented it in a scalable way and privacy and cyber-security in mind. Their focus was mostly on security and scalability.

Some of the technologies used were Java, Python, Solidity, and other different Blockchain technologies. They also used mobile technology including JavaScript and Swift.

What is the team composition?

I worked with Alen (Head of Research) primarily, but there were at least 10 people working behind the scenes. 

How much have you invested with them?

We invested between $200,000 - $999,999.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked with them from April 2017 – January 2020.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement? 

They weren’t an ordinary IT team, they understand product dev and economics behind it. They were focused on the UX of the end product, too. They helped us understand the complexity behind the software in order to best meet the needs of our customers. We’re very satisfied with their work.

How did Abelium R&D perform from a project management standpoint?

They professionally managed the project and dealt with all the unforeseen issues that arose. They finished within the expected scope. We used ordinary PM tools, such as Basecamp and Jira. We met in person most of the time.

What did you find most impressive about them?

By mastering the whole process of IT product dev, they helped us build a better product by directing our focus to the right areas. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

Some aspects of the project could’ve been finished quicker if they had a bigger team.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Tell them what you want, and listen to their advice.