At Imagga, we were proud to co-host CounteR‘s fifth technical meeting in Sofia alongside the European Institute Foundation. For three days (September 26-28, 2023), all consortium partners reviewed the progress of the CounteR Project and further tested and validated the software tool in collaboration with our law enforcement partners. We took a deep dive into evaluating our past and current efforts and strategized for the upcoming tasks within our various work packages (WPs).
Our kick-off day was particularly illuminating, with an insightful review of WP2 – “Social and Psychological Factors in the Radicalisation Process.” We noticed an interesting paradigm shift in the research approach towards preventing radicalization. Instead of solely focusing on individual radicalized identities, the emphasis is gradually leaning towards understanding the underlying issues of radicalization hubs. Our discussions extended to WPs 3 to 6, where we explored enhancements in data collectors, image processing, social network analysis, and the more technical facets like semantic reasoning, deep reinforcement learning, and network algorithms for illicit content removal.
Day Two saw us delving into the intricacies of WPs 7 to 9, emphasizing data privacy and ethical standards. We reflected on the insights gained from our first pilot in Milan in June 2023 and used those learnings to refine our approach for the imminent second piloting session.
The culmination, Day Three, was primarily hands-on. Through various test scenarios and datasets, the tool’s efficacy was assessed. A successful stress test was performed after the law enforcement representatives uploaded the synthetic datasets.
A significant portion of the testing was centered on the NLP analysis module, an excellent work by INRIA. Collaborative discussions between Insikt and us at Imagga enriched the process, especially concerning report issuance for image analysis. This was pivotal in enhancing the system’s subsequent versions. Insikt and Imagga discussed the appropriate ways to issue reports for image analysis to have better and richer user feedback.
The culmination of these sessions wasn’t just progress checks. We robustly tested our system alongside our law enforcement agency partners, gearing up for its grand release.
Furthermore, we dedicated a reasonable amount of time in Sofia to deliberate on CounteR’s communication strategies and commercialization prospects. By the project’s 36th month, we aim to launch a comprehensive business strategy to promote the CounteR solution. The knowledge amassed from CounteR isn’t just technological; it spans across social, legal, and policy sectors – all of which are pivotal for our future roadmap.