The final event of the project that mobilizes the footwear and fashion cluster: GreenShoes 4.0, took place at the CTCP facilities, in S. João da Madeira, on November 22nd, in a culmination of efforts dedicated to boosting innovation and excellence in this sector. A consortium that brought together 15 leading companies from different sectors including design, materials, equipment, software, logistics, retail, footwear and leather goods and 8 non-business entities from the R&I System (ENESII), of which CCG/ZGDV is a member.

This meeting brought together experts from across the sector's value chain, enabling the sharing of knowledge and the latest innovations, to prepare the Portuguese cluster for future challenges. It also promoted a synergistic intersection between “the biological, the physical and the digital”, which resulted in a set of innovations presented to the sector and the general public.

CCG/ZGDV contributed to this project with the creation of digitalization solutions and the development of advanced manufacturing and marketing technologies, for customer-driver online commerce, through the development of visual search and artificial intelligence modules for footwear classification and suggestions, and automatic photo segmentation, and the creation of a model and database for the stock management system.

In this way, the proposed challenges were met: facilitating the work of human catalogers (digital storefronts); providing timely decision support for stock management; making information available to potential customers on time; and providing search tools that are more efficient and intuitive to use for those who navigate through the e-commerce system.