ESGI 188 (European Study Group with Industry) will take place in Bilbao from 26th to 30th of May 2025

• This event, organized by BCAM in collaboration with Diputación Foral de Bizkaia and BAT – B Accelerator Tower, is Europe's leading workshop bringing together mathematicians and industrial companies.
• In this edition there are four challenges from the following companies: Lookiero, Quantum Mads, BAT - B Accelerator Tower and Danobat.
• The academic participants that will participate in  ESGI 188 are a diverse group of people, including MSc and PhD students, postdoctoral fellows, and professors, with expertise in Mathematical fields such as Operations Research, Optimisation, Statistics, Numerical Analysis, Computer Sciences, Physics, Finances, Data Analysis, among others.
• Registrations will open soon. Participants must choose which challenge they want to join, and each registration costs 50 euros.

ESGI 188 (European Study Group with Industry) will take place in Bilbao from  26th to 30th of May 2025 (BAT - B Accelerator Tower),

This event, organized by BCAM in collaboration with Diputación Foral de Bizkaia and BAT – B Accelerator Tower, is Europe's leading workshop bringing together mathematicians and industrial companies.

In this edition there are four challenges from the following companies: Lookiero, Quantum Mads, BAT - B Accelerator Tower and Danobat.

These week-long workshops have been held annually since 1968 and were previously known as the Oxford Study Groups with Industry, where they attracted leading mathematicians to work on industrial problems.

Companies submit mathematical problems for the study group to solve; often in the form of a modelling or an optimisation problem. Participants work in groups around each problem, presenting the results of their efforts to industry at the end of the week. A written report on each problem is drawn up and presented to the companies.

This meeting is part of the series of European Study Groups.

ESGI 188 will be hel in BAT - B Accelerator Tower. There, companies will submit mathematical problems for the study group to solve; often in the form of a modelling or an optimisation problem. Participants work in groups around each problem, presenting the results of their efforts to industry at the end of the week. A written report on each problem is drawn up and presented to the companies.

• Challenge 1 – Lookiero

In this challenge, Lookiero proposes to predict the 5 years Life-Time Value (LTV) of a cohort of Lookiero’s customers.

Customer Life-Time Value (LTV) in marketing predicts the net profit expected from a customer over their entire relationship with a business. It's a crucial metric in Business-to-Customer (B2C) models, calculated using the Repetition Rate (frequency of purchases) and Average Order Value (average amount spent per purchase). LTV is typically analyzed over customer cohorts, groups sharing similar characteristics. For Lookiero, a fashion service, their main business model revolves around Lookiero Box, a subscription-based service where a Personal Shopper selects garments for customers based on their style and needs, sent in a box for trial. Customers pay for the items they keep and return the rest for free, with a median frequency of approximately 2 months and up to 5 items per box.

• Challenge 2 – BAT

The Basque Country's technological entrepreneurship ecosystem is dynamic and growing, fostering collaboration among universities, research centers, large corporations, startups, and the public administration. The ecosystem is anchored by the BAT B Accelerator Tower. As of February 2025, the Basque Country has 45 certified emerging companies out of 1,370 nationally. BAT aims to analyze the economic performance and growth of these companies compared to other national ecosystems. Objectives include extracting key metrics like turnover and employment, comparing them with other ecosystems, and correlating performance data with economic variables like GDP and employment. Additionally, BAT seeks to develop a methodology to measure its impact on these metrics.

• Challenge 3 - Quantum Mads

The integration of renewable energies, especially wind power with ultracapacitor-based storage, poses control and optimization challenges. While the Linear Quadratic Regulator (LQR) is widely used, its large-scale implementation is computationally demanding. This project explores reformulating LQR as a Quadratic Unconstrained Binary Optimization (QUBO) problem for digital annealers like the Fujitsu Digital Annealer. The goal is to enhance control speed and robustness using quantum and annealing-based methods. There are 3 objectives: Quantum LQR Formulation – Adapt LQR into a QUBO model with stability constraints for wind energy systems; Implementation & Validation – Encode and test the model on a digital annealer, comparing performance with classical solvers; Demonstrations & Results – Showcase scenarios, assess scalability, and provide recommendations for hybrid energy systems.

• Challenge 4 - Danobat

The use of robots in metal cutting is gaining interest due to their affordability, mobility, and flexibility compared to CNC machines, which, despite their precision, are costly and less adaptable. However, robots face challenges like dimensional errors, low joint stiffness, and positioning inaccuracies, leading to vibrations that affect machining quality.

Research focuses on modeling robot dynamics to understand and mitigate these issues. The goal is to develop strategies to suppress vibrations, improve stability, and enhance robotic machining performance through theoretical models, simulations, and stability analysis.

The academic participants

The academic participants that will participate in  ESGI 188 are a diverse group of people, including MSc and PhD students, postdoctoral fellows, and professors, with expertise in Mathematical fields such as Operations Research, Optimisation, Statistics, Numerical Analysis, Computer Sciences, Physics, Finances, Data Analysis, among others. At the beginning of the week, a representative from each company presents their industrial problem to the participating mathematicians. The participants allocate themselves to a group, each of which works in one of the proposed problems with the industrial partner.

The work will be developed in full-time over the next days. On the last day, each group will make a presentation of the results obtained and all participants share suggestions for further work. After the study group, a report on each problem will be sent to the corresponding firm. Apart from the results obtained during the study group, this report may contain suggestions for further collaboration. Proceedings with the technical reports produced by the participating groups will be published.

Registrations will open shortly. Participants must choose which challenge they want to join, and each registration costs 50 euros.

PARTICIPATING COMPANIES  

BAT B Accelerator Tower aims to put Bizkaia on the international map of entrepreneurship. The backing of the main Basque institutions is to make BAT B Accelerator Tower a unique centre in the world; capable of bringing together public tools at the service of entrepreneurship and innovation, together with the differential services and the international network of PwC in collaboration with Talent Garden and Impact Hub. BAT B Accelerator Tower aspires to be the most important innovation HUB in Southern Europe and the best connected. A point of concentration and traction of entrepreneurial talent and open innovation, where StartUps, Corporates, Investors and Administration work together.

DANOBAT is an industrial group specialising in the design and manufacture of machine tool solutions and advanced manufacturing.
A co-operative group, integrated in the MONDRAGON Corporation, which at the same time as advancing technologically promotes responsible and sustainable industrial progress, generating a positive impact on people and the environment.

LOOKIERO  is the leading personal shopping service online for women in Europe. The company believes style is much more than the clothes we wear. It uses style to inspire our clients to express themselves. The combination of smart technology and experienced personal stylists ensure Lookiero to find inspiring and constantly surprising styles, tailored to it's clients’ needs and preferences. The company has grown rapidly since our launch in 2016 and are continuing to grow quickly. It now operates in 9 countries with a talented team of +550 people across our 5 offices in Bilbao (HQ), Paris, London, Milan and Berlin. 

QUANTUM MADS  aims to dissect both theoretically and practically the intrinsic dynamics of complex industrial systems, creating solutions that will disrupt the current state-of-the-art modeling techniques and allowing to have unique insights to add disruptive value to the client’s solutions.