Presenting DataBio at the 5th Panhellenic Congress on the Development of Greek Agriculture

One of the things I did during the recent 5th Panhellenic Congress on the Development of Greek Agriculture was to talk about the DataBio Horizon 2020 project and its smart farming pilots in Greece during an interactive session.

The session was organized by DataBio project partner GAIA Epicheirein and supported by NEUROPUBLIC. It aimed at Greek agrifood stakeholder interested in learning about smart farming and the benefits of digital agriculture. It took place on the 25th of October 2018, right after the GAIA Congress; in this way, we ensured that participants of the Congress would also attend the DataBio session, along with other selected participants who were invited.

Presenting the smart farming pilots in Greece during the session

I had the pleasure to be the sole speaker of the event: I started the DataBio session with a presentation of the project, focusing on its aims, objectives, expected outcomes and ongoing activities. After this introduction, I continued with a presentation of the smart farming pilots of the project in Greece, which allowed the participants to get practical information on the crops and locations in Greece where the pilots take place, as well as the expected benefits from each pilot – also mentioning the role of technology and data in each case.

The pilots on olive trees and grapes were of special interest to the participants, as both are among the main crops of Crete.

A big "Thank you" to the audience for their participation after a long and tiring Congress day

The last part of the session was a discussion between DataBio members and the audience, on various aspects of the project. The participants expressed their interest in smart farming and the benefits that they can reap through its adoption, with some of them even expressing their interest in participating in the pilots. Face to face discussions also took place at the DataBio booth with individual participants after the end of the session.

All in all, it was another interesting experience; it was great talking about smart farming to people who showed real interest in the transition from traditional agriculture to smart farming (and that's why they attended the session after a day-long Congress). I also enjoyed the collaboration with the GAIA Epicherein team organizing the session as well as with project partner Anna Bozza from CIAOTECH who spent the whole day at the DataBio booth, informing Congress participants about the project and focusing on the smart farming pilots, which were of special interest to the participants. 

My take on the 5th Panhellenic Congress on the Development of Greek Agriculture

The 5th Panhellenic Conference on the Development of Greek Agriculture was the latest of the series of Conferences organized by GAIA Epicheirein in collaboration with various organizations. It took place at the Candia Maris Resort & Spa Crete, an impressive complex at Heraklion, Crete.

This year's theme was "Digitization: The Future of European Agriculture" - you can read a sort overview here (English).

I found myself contributing to the coverage of the event, being a part of the social media team (and focusing on my favorite Twitter). Using the hashtag #GAIACongress18, we created a cloud of tweets while an additional cloud was created through the #GAIACongress2018 hashtag by third parties (I admit we hadn't circulated the hashtag of the event beforehand so this was a minor casualty). 

My workflow was pretty much a typical one: I was taking photos of the event with my smartphones and kept tweeting using my Bluetooth keyboard which was paired with them. I also used my 11,6-inch tablet with its keyboard for managing the Facebook pages and responding to emails.

Τελευταίες ετοιμασίες λίγο πριν την έναρξη του 5ου Πανελληνίου Συνεδρίου - σας περιμένουμε! #GaiaCongress18 pic.twitter.com/LY5xYuKvw1

— Gaia Επιχειρείν (@Gaia_Epixeirein) October 25, 2018

What I (also) did during the Congress

On top of that, I was around the gaiasense booth that was available at the exhibition room of the Congress; we had a TV screen for playing the gaiasense videos, a huge banner, numerous leaflets and of course our loyal telemetric station (which tends to be around in all recent gaiasense-related event, from the Thessaloniki International Fair 2018 and on!). I had the opportunity to explain the gaiasense concept to participants of the event and talk about the features of our custom telemetric stations.

Among these, I managed to find some time to be around our DataBio Horizon 2020 Big Data Lighthouse Project stand and help our charming Italian partner Anna Bozza from CiaoTech to keep up with questions and requests about the project from Greek stakeholders (many of which were not exactly fluent in English). The stand was really well-thought, with project dissemination material (T-shirts and hats stood out of the crowd!) and drew the attention of various participants of the event.

In between, I got engaged in discussions with friends and colleagues, talked about gaiasense and smart farming in Greece to media, arrange an interview with the national TV channel ERT the day after (a challenging task, considering it should take place about 100 km away from our hotel and I had no car or other mean of transportation available), give a hand to the dissemination of our projects during the Congress (such as our Greek ones SmartPeach and SymbIoT, and our LIFE GAIA Sense EU one) and last but not least, deliver a presentation about our DataBio project, focusing on the Greek pilots! 

My DataBio presentation

Right after the end of the main event (the Congress), GAIA Epicheirein, CiaoTech and NEUROPUBLIC had arranged a brief session focusing on our DataBio Horizon 2020 Lighthouse project at the main room of the Congress. I had prepared a set of slides about the project itself, its aims and objectives and work so far and a second set on the smart farming pilots taking place in Greece - which NEUROPUBLIC coordinates and implements. 

Despite the fact that the session took place by the end of a long day, the audience was more than we initially expected, consisting of various types of Greek stakeholders (farmers and agricultural cooperatives, agricultural advisors and agronomists, other agrifood chain partners). The presentation went pretty well, I received a number of questions during the session and got into related discussions afterwards.

Wrapping up

It was surely a long and busy day, with many tasks running at the same time, various requests to be fulfilled and many-many discussions with stakeholders. In the end we managed to keep things under control and deliver what we had to deliver (plus arrange some things for the next day, like the aforementioned TV interview).

By the end of the day, we had to disassemble everything, pack it up (including posters, roll-ups, banners, leaflets and even our pretty heavy telemetric station), load everything on our pick-up truck and catch up with the rest of colleagues for a nice, traditional Cretan dinner in a small village outside Heraklion.

We knew that we had accomplished our goals during these two days at Crete (the gaiasense event and the 5th GAIA Congress) and this made everything easier for us.