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.

SemaGrow 2nd Hackathon - Introductory Course

It seems like it has been ages since I last participated in an event; in fact it has been only one month since my participation in the "Agriculture for Life, Life for Agriculture" International Conference. This time I was invited to give a presentation on Agricultural and Food Safety Data in the context of the 2nd SemaGrow Hackathon. The Hackathon was organized by Agro-Know, a partner of the SemaGrow project, and hosted by the Institute of Informatics and Telecommunications (also a partner of the SemaGrow project) of NCSR Demokritos, and took place between 4-7/7/2014 (the full program is available here). There is also some information about the Hackathon at the Agro-Know wiki.

The Hackathon was conveniently collocated with the International Research-Centered Summer School in Cognitive Systems and Interactive Robotics, Data and Content Analysis (IRSS 2014), a fact that allowed the participation of a high number of people with technical background and skills. It was attended by about 40 people from various countries all over the world. My involvement was focused only on the first, introductory day of the event but I am sure that there will be a number of interesting outcomes coming out of the hackathon.

Introduction to Agriculture & Food Safety Data from Vassilis Protonotarios

My presentation was mostly based on existing material, reusing slides from presentations prepared by Nikos and Giannis for related purposes; I just had to update some parts and slightly adapt it in order to meet the requirements of the specific audience. Despite the fact that I know the subject pretty well (I have been working with agricultural data and data sources for the last 4-5 years), it did not make sense to me to leave these nice slides aside and prepare something from scratch. It seems that the presentation was well-accepted by the participants, as I received some nice feedback and it managed to raise some interest, leading to interesting discussions with some of them.

You can find some photos from the 1st day of the Hackathon here.

Intro Course to Big Data / "Introduction to Data Science for Agriculture"

The course "Introduction to Data Science for Agriculture", was held on Friday, November 29th, 2013 at the Institute of Informatics & Telecommunications (IIT) of the National Center for Scientific Research (N.C.S.R.) Demokritos, in Athens, Greece. It was the first part of a modular event which also consists of the following parts:

• a Training Day which will be held on Thursday, December 12th, 2013 at the same venue, during which the participants will be trained on the tools and technologies to be used during the Athens Green Hackathon 2013 and
• Athens Green Hackathon 2013, which will take place from Saturday, December 14th, 2013 to Sunday, December 15th, 2013 at the coLab Workspace in Athens, Greece.

You can find more information about the events at the Agro-Know wiki page.

Dr. Vangelis Karkaletsis (NCSR Demokritos)

The course started with an introduction by Dr. Vangelis Karkaletsis, Research Director of IIT of NCSR Demokritos, who provided an overview of the event and the background of IIT, followed by Angeliki Papageorgiou (Agro-Know Technologies, the organizer and contact person for the event) who explained the structure of the modular event and explained all necessary practicalities. The participants (about 35 people) had the opportunity to introduce themselves and explained why they chose to apply for the specific course. I was amazed by the fact that people with so different educational backgrounds were interested in the specific course; starting with agronomists, there were also mathematicians,statisticians, chemists and biologists, as well as web and software developers, ICT specialists and managers. This is exactly the audience that was needed for providing a trans-disciplinary dimension to the issue that we need to address during the hackathon; combining people with expertise in so different domains will surely provide really interesting ideas and outcomes for the hacking!

Angeliki Papageorgiou (Agro-Know Technologies)

Antonis Koukourikos (NCSR Demokritos)

The first presentation came from Antonis Koukourikos (Research Associate of NCSR Demokritos), who provided an interesting introduction to big data and their connection to linked data / semantic web. The case of the POWDER (Protocol for Web Description Resources), a protocol for publishing descriptions of (e.g. metadata about) Web resources using RDF, OWL, and HTTP developed by the IIT team and currently used in the SemaGrow project was also discussed.

Me, presenting the Drivetrain approach

The next presentation was delivered by me and discussed about data products and how they can be designed using a specific approach called "Drivetrain approach", also including a number of application case studies (outside the agricultural sector). My presentation was heavily based on an excellent report titled "Big Data Now" (2012) by O' Reilly, which as an amateur in the field of Big Data found excellent for providing an introduction. Related information can also be found in the O'Reilly web site, in the form of an easy-to-read article.

Designing Data Products from Vassilis Protonotarios

Dr. Charalampos Thanopoulos (AK)

The last presentation of the first day was delivered by my colleague in Agro-Know, Dr. Charalampos Thanopoulos, who discussed the issue of big and open data in agriculture. In addition, he provided a number of cases where data problems in agriculture were addressed with the use of the Drivetrain aproach. His presentation included really interesting data coming from various sources, as well as some nice case-studies of Greek companies activated in the agricultural sector.

After a short lunch break, it was time for the Creativity Workshop (an interactive session) on the development of (big) data products: Using the cases of Apivita and Stevia Hellas (two Greek companies) as a basis, participants were divided in two groups led by Angeliki and Babis respectively and were asked to provide ideas on the development of added value data services for the two companies, focusing on their websites. The session consisted of three parts:

1. Identification of data types and formats which might be useful for each case;
2. Discussion of current issues or ideas for improvement, in the form additional services for the customers of the two companies;
3. Development of one idea per team (each group was divided in teams of 2-3 people), based on the ones already discussed. Design was depicted in A4 papers (initially) and flipchart sheets (at a later stage);
4. Presentation of each team's idea to the participants of the event.

Participants of the Intro Course

During the Creativity Workshop 

Overall, I found it to be a really interesting experience, especially taking into consideration that this was my first presentation on big data. I really enjoyed discussions with participants, who brought fresh ideas and different approaches to the event. It was also really nice to see my colleagues Andreas Drakos (facilitating the interactive session) and Elena Kokoliou (documenting the process and supporting the organization) during the course, as their help and contributions were really valuable. I would also like to highlight the participation of Anne Bruinsma from the Netherlands who made this long trip in order to participate and explore opportunities for affiliation and future collaboration.

Green City Hackathon - Call for participation!

    GREEN CITY HACKATHON (21-22 Σεπτεμβρίου 2013)

Νέα Προθεσμία Υποβολής Αιτήσεων!!

Έχεις μια ιδέα για την εφαρμογή που θα αλλάξει τον τρόπο με τον οποίο χρησιμοποιούμε ψηφιακό περιεχόμενο για το σχεδιασμό εκπαιδευτικών διαδρομών και/ ή περιβαλλοντικών δράσεων εναρμονιζόμενων με το όραμα του Aephoria.net για έναν  βιώσιμο πλανήτη;

Κέρδισε ένα από τα δύο πρώτα βραβεία στο Green City Hackathon που διοργανώνεται από  την ΕΔΕΤ, το Aephoria.net και το Loft2Work με την υποστήριξη της ΕΕΛ/ΛΑΚ, του OKFN Greece και του Hellenic Start Up Association και ανάπτυξε το application σου για εκπαιδευτικές διαδρομές στα πλαίσια του Natural Europe Project ή στήσε τη δική σου επιχείρηση στην κοιτίδα του Aephoria.net.

Γιατί να συμμετάσχεις:

Θα έχεις τη δυνατότητα να κερδίσεις:

α. Μια σύμβαση έργου με την ΕΔΕΤ για το Natural Europe Project αξίας 5000 ευρώ για την ομάδα που θα χρησιμοποιήσει με τον καλύτερο τρόπο ανοιχτά πολιτιστικά και εκπαιδευτικά δεδομένα για εκπαιδευτικούς σκοπούς

β. Μια θέση στην ομάδα των start ups  που θα φιλοξενηθούν στην κοιτίδα του Aephoria.net. Αν επιλεγείς θα έχεις για έξι μήνες (η διάρκεια μπορεί να ανανεωθεί μία φορά) δωρεάν χώρο εργασίας και υποδομές (τηλέφωνο, Internet κλπ.) και δωρεάν υποστήριξη για το στήσιμο και την ανάπτυξη της επιχείρησής σου απο τους μέντορες του Aephoria.net.

γ. Μια σύμβαση έργου για το agINFRA Project αξίας 500 ευρώ για την ομάδα που θα χρησιμοποιήσει με τον καλύτερο τρόπο ανοιχτά γεωπονικά δεδομένα στην εφαρμογή της

δ. Τιμητική διάκριση για την επιλογή της ομάδας σου στις 5 φιναλίστ που θα λάβουν μέρος στο Green City Hackathon

 
Πώς να συμμετάσχεις:

- Συμπλήρωσε τη φόρμα συμμετοχής στο http://www.aephoria.net/green-city-hackathon/ με την περιγραφή της ιδέας σου και της ομάδας που θα συμμετάσχει στο Green City Hackathon μέχρι τις 12 Σεπτέμβρη 2013

- Αν η ιδέα της ομάδας σου επιλεγεί στις πέντε (5) που θα διαγωνιστούν στο Green City Hackathon, προετοιμάσου καλά στις τεχνολογίες και τα δεδομένα στα οποία θα χρειαστεί να βασιστείς και παρακολούθησε το Introductory Course που θα πραγματοποιηθεί την Τρίτη  17 Σεπτεμβρίου 2013 (17.00 – 21.00)

- Λάβε μέρος με την ομάδα σου στο Green City Hackathon που θα πραγματοποιηθεί στις  21 και 22 Σεπτεμβρίου 2013 στο Loft2work (Ιερά Οδός 38, Κεραμεικός) και παρουσίασε το app demo της ομάδας σου, αλλά και τις ιδέες σου για το business plan που θα πείσει τους επενδυτές, με τους οποίους θα σε φέρει σε επαφή το Aephoria.net, να σε χρηματοδοτήσουν. Περισσότερες πληροφορίες για τις προϋποθέσεις και τους όρους συμμετοχής & παραλαβής των βραβείων, μπορείς να βρεις στο link: http://wiki.natural-europe.eu/index.php?title=Green_City_Hackathon

Διοργανωτές

 

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