Hands-on AI/ML technical partner (SME, Croatia) for Cluster 4 work packages: LLMs, agentic AI, NLP, model evaluation and benchmarking

Mibyte is a Croatian sole-trader SME providing AI and machine learning engineering. I'm looking to join Horizon Europe Cluster 4 consortia as a beneficiary delivering technical work packages — not as a coordinator.

Topics of interest

• HORIZON-RAISE-2027-01-01 — Automated Scientific Discovery

• HORIZON-CL4-2027-04-DIGITAL-EMERGING-11 — EU Frontier AI Initiative (safe and computationally efficient AI)

• HORIZON-CL4-2027-04-DIGITAL-EMERGING-04 — Apply AI: Challenge-Driven AI Innovation Booster

• HORIZON-CL4-2027-02-DIGITAL-EMERGING-52-two-stage — Human/AI collaboration for the workforce of the future

• HORIZON-CL4-2027-04-DIGITAL-EMERGING-06 — International cooperation in AI

What I can contribute

• NLP, LLM and generative AI engineering — end-to-end model development (dataset design, LLM-assisted labelling, training, production integration), fine-tuning of open-weight LLMs, and speech systems (ASR/TTS integration and deployment)

• Model evaluation, benchmarking and efficiency — differential testing under strict validation standards; ~50% BERT inference time reduction via encoder layer pruning; evaluation of local LLM/ASR inference stacks (llama.cpp, whisper.cpp, NVIDIA NVIGI), including identification of an SDK bug NVIDIA subsequently patched

• Agentic AI in production settings — agent pipelines delivered into real business processes under genuine IT and policy constraints, including custom integrations extending commercial agent platforms beyond their built-in connectors

• Trustworthy AI in practice — prompt-protection and content-filtering mechanisms for a commercially released LLM-powered product

• Technical leadership — AI Lead on a computer vision project: architecture definition, realistic timeline setting with C-level stakeholders, early identification of an infeasible hardware target

Registered on the EU Funding and Tenders Portal (PIC, self-declared SME status). Registered Horizon Europe expert evaluator (EX2026D1488322). Croatian participation can also support a consortium's widening-country balance.

Full portfolio: https://www.mislavjuric.com/