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.

Discussing smart farming in Greece in the KATANA Roadshow Athens

OpenCircle, an equity crowdfunding platform developed by Parnasse S.A. – and a consortium member of the KATANA Horizon 2020 project, organized on February 2nd 2017 a meeting (KATANA Roadshow Athens) at the premises of Athens Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI) in Athens, Greece. The event aimed at informing Greek potential stakeholders about the possibilities of applying innovative ideas and the funding opportunities offered by the project.

NEUROPUBLIC was invited by the organizers of the event to talk about the status of Smart Farming in Greece, and present its smart farming project which is currently taking places in various locations all over Greece, in collaboration with GAIA EPICHEIREIN. I had the opportunity to represent NEUROPUBLIC in the event so I compiled a set of slides (reusing existing material and adding my own touch in order to make the slides appealing to the specific audience) that tried to cover as many aspects as possible in the time allocated for this presentation.

Γεωργία Ακριβείας στην Ελλάδα του σήμερα from Vassilis Protonotarios

Our contribution aimed at highlighting the specificities of the Greek agricultural sector that prevent typical smart farming approaches from being successfully applied in Greece as well as at encouraging participants to participate with related innovative ideas in the open call of the KATANA project.

What I found challenging was to collect sufficient information on the status of smart farming in Greece; despite the fact that there are numerous Greek SMEs providing the necessary hardware and services (though not as a package as NEUROPUBLIC does) and also numerous EU-funded projects that focused on applying smart farming approaches in various Greek cases of crops and locations, only scarce information was available. I found a couple of presentations, descriptions of a couple of related projects (but not their outcomes) and one really useful (and recent) report on precision agriculture in Greece (which provided useful information for some of the slides) co-authored by Prof. Fountas from the Agricultural University of Athens. I know that the Smart AKIS H2020 project will work on a marketplace for smart farming so I hope that all related information will be more easily discoverable and retrievable in the near future. :-)

The event was well organized (big thanks to the organizers - Parnasse S.A.), engaged a diverse audience (including academia, entrepreneurs, students etc.) and my presentation raised some interest among the participants, which was expressed in a high number of questions afterwards as well as after the end of the event. I also had the opportunity to make some really interesting connections meeting people working on smart farming from different perspectives.

ΚΑΤΑΝΑ is a project funded through the Horizon 2020 programme and aims to promote innovative and smart business ideas in the agrifood sector. Through a well-defined process which includes innovative tools such as peer to peer evaluation and Reward Crowd Funding, at the final step 10 innovative consortia will be selected and receive €100.000 each, in order to proceed with the implementation of their ideas.