- HECOF wraps up in Brussels with a final conference led by Finnova Foundation, highlighting the future of AI, VR, and ethics in European education
- Carmen Mena, EU project officer of Finnova Foundation highlights the power of EU funding to drive innovation in education through projects like LiVAI and 5G-DiGITS
Brussels, 28 May 2025. The Final Conference for the HECOF project, hosted by Finnova Foundation on May 22nd in its Brussels Headquarters, brought together key stakeholders in education, technology, and policy to share insights on the future of teaching in the digital age. With a lineup of the representatives of the project’s consortium, the event served as the closing milestone for the project, which at its core focused on reshaping higher education through innovation and ethical integration of new technologies.
As host and communication leader of the project, Finnova Foundation played a key role in setting the stage for the event and sharing its expertise in European funding mechanisms. During her intervention, Carmen Mena, Project Officer at Finnova, gave an insightful presentation on EU funds as strategic tools to support innovation in education. She explained how European programmes such as ERASMUS+ can empower institutions and professionals to develop cutting-edge projects and build transnational partnerships.
Additionally, Mena also presented two concrete examples from Finnova’s portfolio of projects funded under the Erasmus+ programme: the LiVAI project, dedicated to fostering the development of inclusive educational resources and implementing a comprehensive E-learning platform, and the project 5G-DiGITS, which focuses on training the next generation of 5G professionals, aligning education and training with labor market demands.
Earlier sessions featured expert presentations from project partners who shared the outcomes of pilot initiatives, displayed immersive VR and AI-learning tools, and reflected on the ethical dimensions of digital education. Together, these sessions underscored the lasting impact of the HECOF project and its role in laying the groundwork for a more innovative and inclusive higher education system in Europe.
About HECOF
The Higher Eduction Classroom of the Future (HECOF) initiative aims to revolutionise higher education teaching practices and education policies with the creation of a personalised and adaptive learning system that uses digital data from students’ immersive learning experiences and leverages computational analysis from data science and AI. Additionally, HECOF aims to address ethical and legal concerns surrounding AI by providing recommendations on the responsible use of AI for personalised learning and fostering a safe and lawful digital education ecosystem. The project ran for 30 months and was funded by the Erasmus+ Programme.
About the Finnova Foundation
The Finnovaregio Foundation is a non-profit organisation dedicated to fostering innovation and entrepreneurship in the European Union. Finnova supports transformation projects in the education and business sectors by promoting sustainability and digitalisation, contributing its experience and resources to initiatives such as EduDemoS. This event reaffirms the commitment of European institutions to advanced, sustainable and digitised education, building a bridge to a more connected and environmentally conscious future.