The PRACTICE consortium executed successfully the final review meeting on 19^th - 20^th December 2016 in Brussels.

The final PRACTICE General Assembly, Advisory Board and Technical meeting occured from 14^th to15^th of September, 2016 in Porto / Portugal. The PRACTICE consortium appreciated the advise from the Advisory Board members Moti Yung (Snapchat) and Christian Cachin (IBM Research Zurich).

The first real life application of the Sharemind secure survey system, which has been developed, deployed and hosted by Cybernetica in partnership with Alexandra Institute and Partisia in the PRACTICE project, was successfully concluded in June.

The cooperation between Cybernetica team and the Tartu City Government began a year ago in order to pilot the secure survey system created in PRACTICE. Tartu is the second largest city in Estonia and often considered as the country’s science and research hub. „We wanted to go further than just creating a secure platform. This technology enables truth in its purest form – often we see that „honest“ opinions are swayed by a subconscious fear of repercussions, especially in as sensitive form as workplace satisfaction surveys,“ said Dr. Dan Bogdanov, the project manager from Cybernetica. „Sharemind provides a survey platform which provides total privacy – not based on trust, but mathematics,“Bogdanov added. „This technology could be further implemented in communal decision-making practices, guaranteeing an earnest gaze into what people’s true opinions are.“

The Mayor of Tartu has officially expressed his gratitude about the results of the cooperation and for successfully using the PRACTICE survey system,specifically forwarding his thanks to Baldur Kubo and Marko Jõemets. Cybernetica would like to thank Alexandra Institute and Partisia for the shared efforts that led to the successful result.

(Author of the photo: Meelis Lokk)

The very fruitful PRACTICE Technical meeting occurred from 13^th - 14^th April 2016 in Tel Aviv / Israel.

The first EU FP7 PRACTICE Summer School on Secure and Trustworthy Computing in collaboration with the Polytechnic Institute Bucharest was a great success. The event occurred from 23rd to 28th of September in Bucharest, Romania. Eighteen speakers provided a wide range of topics from advanced cryptography to system security and cloud computing. More than seventy participants from ten countries attended the event. The Summer School offered a great opportunity to all attendees to network, discuss and enjoy a fruitful scientific exchange.