On 25 July 2024, the Artificial Intelligence Hub (AI-Hub) of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Patras met with the Mayor of Western Achaia, Grigoris Alexopoulos, to discuss how artificial intelligence and data-driven tools could support municipal services.

AI-Hub is an academic initiative focused on education, research, and the development of applications, services, and products in the field of Artificial Intelligence. Based at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering of the University of Patras, it operates as an outward-looking hub connecting academics, researchers, students, and professionals working on AI-related topics.

At the time, Georgios Sotiropoulos and I were involved in AI-Hub as collaborating undergraduate students. The meeting was a chance to present applied work developed within the university and discuss how it could connect with real operational needs at municipal level.

The AI-Hub team meeting with the Municipality of Western Achaia.

Application presented:

  • The AI-Hub team presented a working prototype of Nireas, an intelligent system for the automatic monitoring of water quality in the municipality's water distribution network.
  • The prototype focused on monitoring pH, temperature, and chlorine levels, turning operational measurements into clearer indicators and early warnings for the people responsible for maintaining the network.
    The Nireas prototype, an Arduino-based unit that senses pH, temperature, and chlorine.
  • The broader goal was to show how AI, sensing, and analytics workflows can support preventive maintenance, infrastructure monitoring, and more responsive municipal services.
Live pH and temperature readings from the prototype during the demonstration.

Context:

  • The meeting included Associate Professors Kyriakos Sgarbas and Epaminondas Mitronikas, Fotis Sotiropoulos from the AI-Hub administrative committee, and collaborating undergraduate students Georgios Sotiropoulos and myself.
  • The discussion was part of a broader effort to connect university-based AI work with practical local-government use cases, from water quality and infrastructure monitoring to citizen-facing services.

For me, this meeting was valuable because it showed how engineering and AI tools can move beyond academic prototypes and become useful in local public-sector environments. The most meaningful part was seeing how a technical demo could connect directly to the needs of a municipality and the daily life of its residents.