My take on the Thessaloniki International Fair 2021

After a year of hiatus due to the COVID-19 restrictions, Thessaloniki International Fair 2021 took place as a physical event between 11-19 of September 2021 - and I was excited to participate after a long time stuck at the office.

This year, again due to the COVID-19 restrictions, the Fair was not that International as its previous iterations - plus, the attendance was pretty low, due to the fact that the Fair was open only to those already vaccinated and / or those who had already recovered from COVID-19. The security measures at the entrances were pretty tight, so these measures were actually enforced.

While in the previous versions of the TIF, NEUROPUBLIC had a stand inside one of the Pavilions, this year the company had an impressive external Stand right after the main entrance of the Fair. The main components of NEUROPUBLIC's Stand were the following:

• Two external and one internal large monitors were used for the playback of corporate videos and related material, 
• Two smartphones were available for visitors to try the new gaiasense mobile app 
• Lots of printed material like NEUROPUBLIC's corporate profile, the new gaiasense booklet and threefold leaflet, plus my favorite gaiasense pens (they turned out to be pretty popular!)
• A fully functional telemetric agrometeorological station of gaiasense was installed in the nearby flower bed and transmitted data measurements to one of the screens

Plus, there were two promoters giving out helium-filled gaiasense balloons to kids and leaflets to visitors.

I missed the great opening of the event (not a bad thing, for various reasons) as I joined my colleagues after the 3rd day. Everything was already set up so I only had to make sure that everything was working smoothly, relaxing music was playing all the time, our WiFi hotspot was on - as was our valuable air-condition.

I had the opportunity to discuss about the gaiasense smart farming system and mobile app to various visitors, including farmers, researchers and other technology providers seeking opportunities for collaboration. In addition, I organized project-thematic days at the Stand, featuring our PoliRural, SmartPeach and SmartOliveGrove projects. Each day we had a poster or rollup and leaflets of each project, and this went better than I expected, as the visiting producers were more than I anticipated.

During my stay I had the opportunity to meet new colleagues working at NEUROPUBLIC's Thessaloniki office, like Kostas, Vaggelis and Matthew - all of them proved to be great guys and good match to the rest of the team. We set up everything in the morning and packed everything back (including the large monitors, the packs of printed materials and chairs/tables, among others) each evening, by the closing of the Fair.

In general, participation in such events is exhausting: You typically have to wake up pretty early, have breakfast, open the Stand and put everything in place, move around all the time restocking printed material, pencils, making sure to fix the mess of chairs and papers being out of place (and all over the place), talking to visitors, preparing cups of coffee and bags of promotional material, and try to find some time for a quick lunch break when the pace of the event is slow.

The day is over and we are about to start packing stuff for the day to come

However, this trip - as each trip inside Greece or abroad - was a refreshing change in the daily office routine. I like hotel life, I love wandering around a city and seeing new things, tasting new dishes and breathing fresh air. This is why I managed to reach my daily steps target during my stay - I had the energy to walk around even during late evening after a long and busy day at the Fair.

Getting to talk to potential customers is always a pleasure, but there is an awful lot of work to do back to the office so I am wrapping up and looking forward to the next trip.

Networking workshop for Greek LIFE projects

In the context of the LIFE Project’s “Cyprus Capacity Building for LIFE – Cyclamen” delegation visit to Athens, the Greek LIFE Task Force organized a workshop on the networking of Greek LIFE projects. The event took place on Tuesday July 2 at the headquarters of the Green Fund at Villa Kazoulis.

I had the pleasure to participate in the Workshop on behalf of NEUROPUBLIC and present the LIFE GAIA Sense project, its objectives, the methodology it develops as well as the the progress it has made during its first year of operation.

LIFE GAIA Sense is a European project coordinated by NEUROPUBLIC, and co-funded by the LIFE Programme of the EC. The project is based on the gaiasense smart farming system and aims to present the way in which gaiasense contributes to the conservation of natural resources, to environmental protection and more generally, to circular economy models.

My presentation focused on gaiasense, with references to the system’s concept, its four dimensions, the role of technology, scientific results, data and human factor, as well as the benefits (environmental, financial etc.) resulting from its application.

After the end of the presentation I received a number of questions from the participants, who showed special interest in the approach followed by the project, as well as the gaiasense system. In addition, during the break, we discussed various opportunities for cooperation between LIFE GAIA Sense and other projects participating in the event, extending the system’s activity to new contexts and examining new potential applications.

I was impressed by the simplicity of the participants; it is something I also felt when meeting biodiversity researchers several years ago, when I participated in a BioVeL meeting. People seem to be more accessible and easy to approach compared to e.g. Horizon project partners - maybe I am mistaken.

This goes to the organizers of the meeting, who helped me feel comfortable among people I didn't know and a concept (the LIFE projects' ecosystem) that I was not familiar with.

I was also impressed by the venue; Villa Kazouli seems to have a long history and still looks fabulous.

Swedish Embassy’s workshop on sustainable agriculture

On Wednesday, June 19, the Embassy of Sweden in Athens, in collaboration with the University of Crete and the Consulate of Sweden in Heraklion, organized a Workshop on the sustainability of the agrifood sector, titled «Sustainable agriculture & food – our common future!» at the Chamber of Heraklion, Crete.

The aim of the Workshop was to highlight the challenges that the agrifood sector faces, including all stages from the field to the shelf, and the presentation of digital and technological solutions that contribute to addressing these challenges and to the sustainability of food production.

Credits: Embassy of Sweden/Orsia Fragkou

In this context, research and scientific outcomes were presented by institutions such as University of Crete and the Hellenic Agricultural Organization “Demeter”, on modern methods related to food safety through laboratory analyzes, plant protection, fisheries and aquaculture, and sustainable food production.

I had the pleasure to represent NEUROPUBLIC in the event, as one of the invited speakers, along with my colleague Dionysis Pantazatos, Project Manager. My participation, in the context of the second session of the Workshop, focused on the gaiasense smart farming system . My presentation highlighted the main features of the system and focused on how gaiasense contributes to the economic, environmental and social sustainability.

Credits: Embassy of Sweden/Theodore Karakassis

The event was attended, among others, by members of the academic community, researchers, representatives of agri-food businesses and related research projects, and was introduced by the Swedish Ambassador to Greece Charlotte Sammelin, and the Vice-Rector of Academic Affairs of the University of Crete Giannis Karakasis.

I also had the opportunity to join the Embassy's pop-up event, which preceded the Workshop. It was an informal event, during which I got to meet and talk to the Embassy's staff - including but not limited to Patrik Svensson, Counsellor and Deputy Head of Mission. Discussions took place over a cup of coffee and snacks and I learned a lot about the Embassy and its activities in Greece.

Special thanks to Sophia Keramida for the excellent communication and for organizing the event, as well as to all participants for contributing to the success of the event.

gaiasense at Heraklion: A challenging but successful event

On October 24th 2018, NEUROPUBLIC organized an open event for the gaiasense smart farming system at Aquila Atlantis Hotel, Heraklion, Crete. The aim of the event was to present various aspects of the gaiasense system (e.g. technological, business, policy & CAP) to stakeholders from Crete.

Background

There was a lot of preparation behind the event: Presentations were made from scratch with the help of a (talented) graphic designer and multiple rehearsals took place before the event. Demos of the gaiasense applications and tools were prepared, based on predefined scenarios (to save time). A new (stunning) video was prepared highlighting the concept of gaiasense and various activities related to its operation, media coverage was arranged, invitations were sent to key stakeholders and a ticketing system was set up for organizing the attendance in the best possible way. The agenda was carefully thought and prepared, ensuring that representatives from all aspects of gaiasense would have the time to talk and discuss their contributions.

We even had our famous telemetric station packed and loaded onto the gaiasense pickup truck (and then unpacked it and set it up at the event room - a really challenging task!), loads of posters, roll-ups, banners, leaflets and other dissemination material packed, unpacked and set up as well; everything set up in a couple of hours.

The event

I admit it; participation was higher than I expected: We had booked a room seating about 150 people and by the beginning of the event we already had people standing and leaning on the walls. There were mostly agricultural advisors, farmers and agricultural cooperatives, and other stakeholders interested in innovation in the agricultural sector.

(Partial) view of the audience from the panelists' table

Everything went smooth and according to the plan; of course, there were some minor glitches here and there (e.g. a specific app wouldn't work over the existing WiFi network so we had to skip it at the last rehearsal), but this is expected during a live event. The sound was fine, videos went out great, the audience was really interested in the presentations and there were some questions after each session.

What made the event more interesting was the fact that we had decided to skip the typical set of (usually boring) slides for the description of the four dimensions of gaiasense - we also skipped the typical sitting /standing on the podium and we went for a PechaKutcha style of presentation, so we had the opportunity to look at our audience instead of the laptop screen, using a wireless microphone.

The specific session was apparently my favorite one; not only because it was me and my colleagues working closely and presenting the gaiasense dimensions in a complimentary way, but also due to the fact that it was really different than the rest. I personally had the opportunity to present not one but two of the gaiasense dimensions - and right after that, to demonstrate the main gaiasense software tools. It was a real marathon for me, but I think it came out pretty well.

It was also interesting that aspects of gaiasense like its role in the new CAP as an instrument supporting the implementation of its measures, its role as a tool for agricultural advisors (agricultural advisory services will be a key component of the new CAP) and its European dimension were also presented by colleagues and collaborators.

Wrapping up

In less than 2,5 hours we managed to present almost everything related to the gaiasense smart farming system, including the technological, the methodological, the scientific and the policy aspects of gaiasense. The pace was so quick, based on short sessions and the constant change of speakers, that the audience could not help but follow the flow. Their interest was expressed in the form of discussions that took place right after the event. It was a really dense period and an even more dense event - but it went really well and this made up for it.

The end of the event was not the end of the activities: We had to pack everything and send it over to another hotel, where the 5th Panhellenic Congress for the Development of Greek Agriculture would take place (and gaiasense would also be represented with its own booth, posters, roll-ups and other dissemination material). Press releases had to be prepared and sent to media, photos had to be organized and I also had yet another presentation to make - this time on the DataBio project and its smart farming pilots in Greece (that NEUROPUBLIC is responsible for).

It was a day to remember, that's for sure.

My five days at the Thessaloniki International Fair 2018

Between 8-12 of September 2018, I had the opportunity to participate (as an exhibitor, on behalf of NEUROPUBLIC) in the Thessaloniki International Fair (TIF), the largest exhibition event in Greece and one of the largest in the wider area. It was an interesting experience as it was not an (agricultural) domain specific event; rather a Fair to promote latest advances in various sectors (including agriculture).

Our aim (and stand) aimed at informing the TIF visitors about our gaiasense smart farming system and other innovations of NEUROPUBLIC, such as the NeuroCode.

We were at Pavillion 15, Stand 15 and the stand was impressive: It was huge, it had everything needed for the occasion, like a sofa and comfortable armchairs for having relaxed discussions with potential customers, stands for our printed material and memorabilia, TV screens playing videos about gaiasense, roll-up posters, printed design graphics on the walls (and even on the ceiling!), and a multi-sided informational construction. However, the main attraction of our Stand was one of the gaiasense telemetric stations, available for the first time to the general public in a show case, with lots of information about its components and features.

NEUROPUBLIC’s telemetric station in the spotlight of the 83rd Thessaloniki International Fair https://t.co/QOBXkZhigC @gaiasenseGR #gaiasense #SmartFarming #IoT #agriculture #TIF2018 #ΔΕΘ2018 #ΔΕΘ18 pic.twitter.com/bE0wpKIoPP

— NEUROPUBLIC (@Neuropublic) September 17, 2018

Me and my colleagues had the opportunity to talk with many visitors of the Exhibition, including researchers (interested in the concept of gaiasense), electrical engineers (interested in the technical aspects of the station). farmers and members of agricultural cooperatives (interested in adopting gaiasense). In all cases, we held (short and longer) discussions, provided details and gave away leaflets for future reference. We made contacts and kept their details for following up,

It was a challenging task: the exhibition was open daily between 09.00-21.00 and we had other ongoing tasks as well (e.g. I was trying to keep our social media channels updated and maintain communication with potential partners of a number of proposals that we were working on at that time) but we manage to accomplish our mission in the best possible way.

Looking forward to the next one :-)

Attending the Smart AKIS 3rd Innovation Workshop

Earlier today I had the opportunity to be among the selected audience of the Smart AKIS 3rd Innovation Workshop in Greece, which took place at the premises of the Agricultural University of Athens. Among the participants of the Workshop there were academia (researchers working with smart farming and/or precision agriculture), representatives from farmers' associations and private companies, students etc.

Σήμερα βρισκόμαστε στο ΓΠΑ σε ημερίδα του έργου @smart_akis σχετικά με τις "ευφυείς" τεχνολογίες στη γεωργία #ΕυφυήςΓεωργία #smartfarming pic.twitter.com/QqsXQVWi7P

— gaiasense (@gaiasenseGR) February 20, 2018

The event aimed at providing an overview of various aspects of smart farming in Greece and was well-structured: Starting with a presentation of the Smart AKIS project and its platform, it moved to various funding opportunities available to smart farming stakeholders and then to pitching of innovative ideas based on smart farming that were discussed in the previous Smart AKIS workshop and implemented in the meantime. Since the implementation involved (in most cases) both research organizations and private companies (along with farmers of course!), this brought the EIP-AGRI's Operational Groups in my mind.

This feeling was further enhanced by the discussions that followed and concluded the event; the audience was split in three groups and discussed about the previously described ideas that would address real issues that farmers face. The fact that each group included at least one representative of a farmers' association was critical; I was lucky to be in the same group with Mark Legas from 7Grapes/Pegasus cooperative and he was a real source of inspiration, matching existing issues with potential solutions on the fly. The most prominent solutions will be presented and discussed during a Pan-European workshop of the project, to take place in the near future.

Participating in the @smart_akis workshop today, dedicated to #SmartFarming technologies & funding opportunities - w/ @gaiasenseGR pic.twitter.com/iUpBA0MvHZ

— NEUROPUBLIC (@Neuropublic) February 20, 2018

There was a common understanding (and agreement) among the participants that we need to (and can) produce more with less, that technology alone cannot provide the solutions for the existing food production issues and that research is a vital part of the solution, along with technology and data. Farmers understand that they do not have full control of the way they apply inputs in their fields and admit that they would appreciate support in the form of advice in their decision-making processes that affect their production. Researchers know how their scientific knowledge can contribute and companies have the expertise to implement this by transforming it into advice and apply it through innovative technologies.

Overall, it was a great event (congratulations to the organizers!), engaging various actors of the agrifood chain, and I was glad to be a part of it.

Participation in the Agrotica 2018 International Fair

I recently had the opportunity to participate in the 27th International Fair for Agricultural Machinery, Equipment & Supplies Agrotica 2018, as a member of the NEUROPUBLIC team working with the gaiasense smart farming system. We are talking about a huge exhibition focused on agriculture, with thousands of visitors of all kinds - from farmers looking for the new machinery to meet their needs to hi-tech company representatives looking for collaboration opportunities with other companies. I participated in the four days of the event (Thessaloniki, between 1-4/2/2018), along with colleagues from NEUROPUBLIC.

This year, NEUROPUBLIC worked jointly with GAIA EPICHEIREIN towards a joint booth for gaiasense, and the result was outstanding; it was a huge booth, consisting of an informational desk, several tables with chairs for discussions with potential customers, two screens with video playback at the sides and a main video wall for the gaiasense (and other) presentations taking place during Agrotica 2018. On top of that, gaiasense had a 4-hour dedicated informational event on Friday 2/2/2018, for selected potential partners (mostly agricultural advisors, researchers and farmers), which attracted more than 160 people.

Full house at the gaiasense information event at Agrotica 2018

The gaiasense informational event had me multitask between preparing & sending tweets with photos (for once more using by Logitech K480 keyboard with two smartphones and one tablet!), jotting down notes, talking to contacts that made it to the event, meeting new people and addressing their questions and taking some photos, too (see below).

From my side, I had an active role in the preparation of all this - mostly in the selection of the invitations' list, the promotion of the event through social media and contacting some key persons for attending the event or visiting our booth. During Agrotica 2018, I was one of the "booth team", providing information about gaiasense to anyone interested in it (and there were dozens of them). I was also responsible for sharing updates through social media (a challenging task, taking into consideration the almost non-functional wireless connection of the event) and also taking some photos (a "backup photographer, as there was a professional one around most of the time - this allowed me to dig out my Olympus EPM-1 camera and take some nice shots).

At the booth I had the opportunity to meet old friends (mostly from university days) and colleagues, collaborators in projects etc. I also met some interesting people, passionate about their work and eager to learn more on how to apply gaiasense in their cases. These are the early adopters that an innovative system like gaiasense needs in order to get a boost at its first steps :-)

Τελευταία ημέρα της #Agrotica2018 - σας περιμένουμε στο Περίπτερο 2 Όροφος, Stand 34-35-36 για να σας μιλήσουμε σχετικά με το σύστημα ευφυούς γεωργίας #gaiasense! pic.twitter.com/6L3wOQN7gm

— gaiasense (@gaiasenseGR) February 4, 2018

Overall, the experience was pretty challenging, including long hours at the booth, addressing various unexpected issues on the spot, having an irregular daily schedule with few snacks, lots of coffee and lots of laughs with colleagues and friends! The most important outcome of these days though, was the fact that we came to actually meet many different potential customers / users of gaiasense, hear what they need and see if (and how) gaiasense can help them address their needs. It helped us (and me personally) better understand how we can reach these people by better understanding their needs.

Back to work now :-)

Our gaisense system gets social!

During his latest interview, NEUROPUBLIC's President mentioned that 2018 will be the year of gaiasense; gaiasense being the smart farming system that NEUROPUBLIC develops along with GAIA EPICHEIREIN. This means that apart from the actual work (referring to the expansion of the gaiasense network in terms of land coverage and support for new crops) we also need to spread the word about gaiasense and make its target audience familiar with it.

The first step was accomplished; it was the development of the gaiasense website. This is the point of reference for the system, where all available information (at least the public parts) is included. It is important that the website is bilingual (Greek and English), so that it can be used as a reference when contacting our foreign partners and collaborators, too.

The next step is to help potential users and collaborators (mostly farmers, agricultural advisors and researchers) find this point of reference. And this is where social media come in the picture.

So far, we used mostly NEUROPUBLIC's social media (Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn page) for sharing news about gaiasense. But now is the time for gaiasense to have its own, customized voice through dedicated social media channels. We decided to go with the same channels that NEUROPUBLIC also uses:

1. Facebook: We created a Facebook product page for gaiasense. Thanks to the flexibility of Facebook, I believe that this will be the most attractive channel. In fact, the page managed to attract more than 100 followers in just three days - an impressive number, taking into consideration the fact that the audience of gaiasense is pretty limited. A promoted post surely helped towards this direction,
2. Twitter: We setup a Twitter account for gaiasense so that we can reach a different audience. This channel will be mostly used for promoting content already published elsewhere and reaching out to related stakeholders. We started following related accounts (e.g. agricultural cooperatives, agricultural advisors, agricultural media etc.).
3. LinkedIn: We created a showcase page for gaiasense, as one of NEUROPUBLIC's products. Taking into consideration that LinkedIn is mostly used in English (and is pretty limited in terms of flexibility), this is expected to be the most challenging channel.

Challenges

Making the most out of social media is not easy, when it comes to Greek products aimed at Greek users (at least for the time being). The main challenges that we face are the following:

• Language: Channels like Twitter and (mostly) Lhttps://twitter.com/gaiasensegrinkedIn are not easy to use in a language other than English. For Twitter, using hashtags in Greek does not seem to be successful. LinkedIn does not play well with Greek, neither. I have tried using #ΕυφυήςΓεωργία, the Greek term for #SmartFarming, and I was surprised to see that we were probably the first ones to use it! As for the content language, we started posting in Greek (our target audience are Greek and some of them are not fluent in English) but I believe that they would benefit from some content in English, as well. It is about balancing between the targeting audience and raising awareness about the product in general.
• Low use of social media: Farmers do not tend to use social media; they may have (personal) Facebook profiles but using Twitter or LinkedIn? Hm...no. The same goes more or less for agricultural cooperatives, while researchers and agricultural advisors are usually more active on social media (depending mostly on their age). If they do not use social media, then we cannot reach them...
• Account names: This does not have to do with the language, but is was yet another issue. The account names @gaiasense were already taken both on Facebook and Twitter. In both cases, we considered a couple of alternatives, and the winner was @gaiasenseGR. I have numerous examples of cases where various organizations (and their products) had their account names taken but still they managed to successfully overcome this. So why couldn't we do he same?

All in all, this is a work in progress. The social media channels of gaiasense will be our tools for reaching out to more potential customers and collaborators and we will put effort in addressing the aforementioned challenges. I am sure that the results will be positive, to the extend possible of course.

So, gaiasense is now available through Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, It is up to us to make these channels successful and up to you to learn more about gaiasense :-)

The gaiasense website is launched

This is what I gave a hint on some time ago and the news can now be shared: The website of NEUROPUBLIC's gaiasense smart farming system is now publicly available!

We started with the Greek version a couple of days before GAIA EPICHEREIN's 4th Congress (keep in mind that our customers are Greek) and the English one followed some days later. The English version is mostly aimed to our partners abroad, so that our work is communicated in the best possible way to them - and I should be the one to blame for most parts of the translation from Greek to English :-) 

There is a lot of useful information about the concept of gaiasense and how it appeals to different types of potential users, news items related to gaiasense etc. However, most part of the content focuses on the four dimensions of gaiasense, as shown in the figure above. At the same time, we are working on updating and enriching the content on a regular basis.

They say that a picture equals a thousand words, so I would skip more (boring) descriptions for the time being and invite you to visit the gaiasense website at http://www.gaiasense.gr/en/

Shaping the content of a new website

During the last days, I dedicate most of my time in shaping the content for a new website: the website for NEUROPUBLIC's smart farming solutions. And I like that.

It all started a couple of weeks ago (the concept was discussed for quite a long time), with a meeting between our team and a marketing / digital communications agency team. During the meeting we presented our work and requirements and provided the raw material (content in the form of texts, slides, graphics, publications etc.). Then the agency had to go through all that stuff, get to understand it and came up with an initial layout and structure for the website. Based on that, and after some minor revisions, we started building the content with the help of the agency; we provided the content and they had to come up with more commercial versions of it, filling all gaps.

At this time, a small team inside NEUROPUBLIC (including me) is working closely with the agency, crafting each website section and paragraph, creating and revising content, working on alternative versions and exchanging ideas on new sections or layouts. Seeing our texts on web pages, I realized that we had to make bold revisions to the texts, so that they our expected different user types will be able to identify themselves in the texts and be attracted to the smart farming offerings of NEUROPUBLIC. I also found myself following the stereotypes at some points, getting stuck with a more formal representation of our work but I am working on simplifying the texts.

Even though it is too early to share any specific information on this, I can tell that the work is challenging; smart faring is very specific topic, the terminology used is also specific and the agency seems to have a hard time "commercializing" the texts and coming up with catchy quotes for the website (but still they're doing a lovely work in terms of both content and visuals)! While we have a specific way of expressing our work, we still need to understand that the alternative approach proposed by the agency might actually be the best way to go; in this sense, we understand that we need to balance our point of view and the agency's ideas. We need to make sure that our concepts are properly described and at the same time, we need to be open to new ways for that.

The deadline is really pressing and there are other tasks to be completed at the same time, but I believe that we will be able to come up with a first, decent version of the website - and the corresponding leaflet within the next days. :-)

Data revolution in agriculture: Emerging new data-driven business models in the agri-food sector

The European Innovation Partnership for Agricultural Productivity and Sustainability (EIP-AGRI)  organized a seminar titled "Data revolution: emerging new data-driven business models in the agri-food sector" between 22-23 of June 2016 in Sofia, Bulgaria. The seminar was attended by more than 100 people and NEUROPUBLIC was there, represented by its President Dr. Fotis Chatzipapadopoulos.

The seminar focused on the core role that data play in the agrifood sector, mostly thanks to the advances in contexts like smart farming and the Internet of Things in agriculture, where data are collected from various sources (such as sensors, databases, radars and GPS, to quickly name a few), stored, processed and used for providing data-informed advice on e.g. farm management (affecting cultivation practices). The constantly increasing availability of agrifood data combined with the innovative ideas that are transformed into data-powered services leads to the creation of a new ecosystem of businesses that work on various aspects of agri-food data management and development of services based on these data. Using this as the basis, the seminar not only allowed the presentation of such innovative ideas by the participants but it gave them the opportunity to discuss them with the audience and identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and risks with real potential customers in order for them to evaluate the business model of their services. At the same time, the participation and contribution of key stakeholders and policy makers drove a discussion on how agricultural and rural development policy can support the data revolution for an enhanced productivity and sustainability in the wide agri-food chain.

The business model of NEUROPUBLIC's smart farming services is one of the aspects that makes a difference compared to the competition; instead of charging customers for the infrastructure (i.e. telemetric stations to be installed in the field, the use of the GAIA Sense panhellenic network for data transmission, the use of proprietary software for data entry, sharing etc., NEUROPUBLIC opts to offer all technological infrastructure for free and only charge customers (i.e. farmers) for the services that they use - and only for them - on a subscription-based model. This is really important for the potential users of these services, as the company mostly targets smallholder farmers who do not have the capacity nor the resources to invest in costly technological infrastructure but still they need to improve their production and reduces production costs. In this way, NEUROPUBLIC is the one to take the risk and invest for farmers instead of the farmers themselves only to receive a fraction of the financial benefits that farmers yield by using its smart farming services - how does this sound as a business plan?

One can only imagine that the case of NEUROPUBLIC is only one of the many available around, focusing on different steps of the agri-food chain and ranging from food production to retail sales. The explosion of data production and availability during the last years has a tremendous impact on the way that the agri-food sector is operating and the pressure applied in order to agriculture in order for it to meet the constantly increasing nutritional needs of the constantly growing population over the next years highlights the need for the exploitation of the available data.

You can find more information on the outcomes of the event in the recently published report (PDF) of EIP-AGRI.

Discussing about open data during MEDHackathon 2016

MEDHackathon 2016 took place in Patras, Greece, between 13-15/7/2016 - it was organized by various organizations including ERFC and SDI4Apps and hosted by the University of Patras in the lovely Conference Cultural Centre. MEDHackathon consisted of two main parts:

1. A Conference on the first day, followed by
2. A hackathon on the next two days - open data in different contexts and types. 

Both events were international, attracting participants from Greece, Latvia, Czech Republic and Slovakia, Norway etc.

Could you be such an #innovative #farmer? Texting cows, #fleets & #drones to #manage your #farm @vprot @Neuropublic pic.twitter.com/kPZg8QYtlB

— Irene Matzakou (@IreneMatz) July 13, 2016

I had the pleasure to attend the first two days of the event and in fact to make a presentation on how NEUROPUBLIC makes use of open data in its smart farming services. It has been a long time since I last participated in a Conference and a bit longer since I last made a presentation.The presentation provided some information on the status of open data in the agricultural sector, provided examples of open data in terms of types and formats and then showed examples of commercial uses of open data in commercial applications. The presentation concluded with the description of NEUROPUBLIC's GAIA Sense network consisting of a number of telemetric stations (GAIATrons) that are developed in-house and explained how the sensor data of these stations are combined with open earth observation data from the Copernicus program of the European Space Agency (ESA) to provide meaningful services to farmers.

Doing business with Open Data in agriculture by Vassilis Protonotarios

The Conference included presentations from the Greek public sector (describing the progress and status of opening up governmental data) as well as from private sector (focusing on how they make use of these data). It has been a great experience and allowed me to get to know some really interesting people like Nikolas Petropoulos from ERFC (organizers and hosts of the event), Visiting Prof. Fotis Nanopoulos (ex General Director of EUROSTAT and a person full of interesting stories to share), Irene Matzakou (Intrasoft International, really focused on projects and also active on social media like me!), Ery Zisi from the Greek Ministry of Agriculture (the person responsible for the ministry's open data!), Kalliope Aggelakopoulou (legal advisor and active contributor to the official Greek Open Data portal) and many-many more.



At the same time I had the pleasure to meet some old friends and colleagues like Karel Charvat (he was among the organizers of this event), Pavlos Georgiadis (We Deliver Taste / CAPSELLA), Prof. Vassilis Makios (Corallia) and others.

During the 2nd day of the event (which was also the first day of the Hackathon), I had to pass the floor to my colleague Thanasis Manos as I had to leave (and get back to the office) after I made a presentation of NEUROPUBLIC's challenge.

Lots of interesting ideas materialized using #OpenData in #MEDHackathon - congrats to everyone working on them! https://t.co/vHbQcjQRAO

— V. Protonotarios (@vprot) July 15, 2016

If you want to get an overview of what happened during MEDHackathon 2016, you can check out the Twitter hashtag #MEDHackathon for short comments and lots of photos from the event. The event was also broadcasted live through the University of Patras's Web TV.

Overall it was a nice experience, which combined the presentation of our work (the GAIASense network), setting up a challenge for the hackathon based on GAIATron sensor data and some useful networking among the participants.