Internet of Things and Agriculture: AIOTI Working Group 06

The Alliance for Internet of Things Innovation (AIOTI) was initiated by the European Commission in 2015, with the aim to strengthen the dialogue and interaction among Internet of Things (IoT) players in Europe, and to contribute to the creation of a dynamic European IoT ecosystem to speed up the take up of IoT. It involves a high number of organizations from the public and private sector that join forces towards a common goal.

AIOTI is organized in 13 Working Groups that cover different areas of IoT applications; NEUROPUBLIC is a member of AIOTI and one of the contributors to its WG 06: Smart Farming and Food Security. We gladly accepted Gradiant's invitation (the organization leading the specific WG) and so I found myself in Brussels on Sunday afternoon, getting ready to represent NEUROPUBLIC in the meeting which was hosted by the Spanish Office of Science and Technology (or Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas in Spanish).

I was excited to be on the same table with people from organizations such as Bayer Crop Science, IBM, Siemens, CEMA (the voice of the EU agricultural machinery producers), COPA-COGECA (the voice of EU farmers and farmers' cooperatives) and Intracom Telecom, to name a few, and have the opportunity to discuss about the current status of implementation of new technologies and the IoT ecosystem in the agricultural context. I was also glad to meet old friend Christopher Brewster from TNO after quite a long time.

AIOTI WG06 activities (#smartfarming #foodsecurity) in 2017 kick off today with a face-to-face meeting in Brussels cc @Gradiant @AIOTI_EU pic.twitter.com/Pzbm8lLAxA

— Marcos Álvarez-Díaz (@madtuirer) January 30, 2017

During the meeting, GAIA Epicheirein was mentioned as one good use case of application of new technologies in agriculture; I was happy to provide some insights on how GAIA Epicheirein was established and the work done in the context of NEUROPUBLIC's smart farming project that takes place all over Greece. Our new H2020 project DataBio was also mentioned quite a few times during the meeting, as one of the projects that may help push things forward in the specific context (see e.g. the smart farming pilots that NEUROPUBLIC will be responsible for).

The Smart AKIS H2020 project was also presented during the meeting by Ivo Hostens from CEMA, as a project that could be of interest to the scope of the group; more specifically, the marketplace that the project aims to build could be adapted by the WG.

.@Gaia_Epixeirein presented as a use case of #SmartFarming during @AIOTI_EU WG06 meeting #IoT #InternetOfThings @Gaia_Brussels pic.twitter.com/JCppqyI398

— NEUROPUBLIC (@Neuropublic) January 30, 2017

The next steps of the Working Group were discussed during the meeting and there are still points to be addressed but this first face to face meeting of the Working Group gave a boost into the right direction (and also allowed the participants / members of the WG to get to know each other). I have the feeling that NEUROPUBLIC will be one of the important members of the group, due to its unique combination of technology/infrastructure, access to farmers (through GAIA Epicheirein) and application of its smart farming services under real conditions. :-)

Overview of my 2016

2016 reached its end and it was full of hard work, achievements and an important decision. I still cannot comment on that but it was one of the hardest decisions I ever made... but let's see some more details on the main points of my 2016:

• By April 2016: I worked with IFOAM EU on... I am sorry but I cannot reveal any details on that, due to confidentialy aspects of the contract; it was something interesting that had to do with knowledge (and information) management and mostly organization of existing resources. It was a great experience and also provided me with the opportunity to visit IFOAM EU's premises in Brussels and get to meet lovely and experienced people like Laura Ullmann.
• By May 2016: I worked on a contract with UN FAO on the mapping of the legal interoperability status of the major data sources in the aquaculture and fisheries sectors. It was a great collaborative work between FAO staff and consultants that was published as the deliverable D2.6 Report on data sharing policies and legal framework in fishery and marine sciences data sector of the EGI-Engage project. In the context of this collaboration I had the opportunity to make a short trip to UN FAO's premises at Rome and participate in a related meeting.
• March 2016: I was honored to be invited as a member of the Programme Committee of the AgroSEM 16 Special Track of the MTSR 2016 Conference. AgroSEM is a great Workshop that engages interesting participation from the agrifood and environment sector regarding work with information & knowledge management, semantics etc. My first involvement in the Workshop was back in 2011, in the context of the VOA3R project.
• April-May 2016: I had the opportunity to work on the FOODAKAI deliverable, which aimed to provide the current status of the food safety data ecosystem, including data sources, licensing schemes, interoperability options, existing mobile apps etc. It was the last deliverable I work on for Agroknow...
• May 2016: I made one of the most difficult decisions of my life and left Agroknow on May 6th. I can talk for hours & write pages and pages about this decision and the reasons behind it but I will not. I worked with Agroknow since the end of 2010 and was among the first ones to set foot in the new offices in January 2011, helping set everything up (from desks and chairs to projects and contracts). I learned a lot of new things, I was offered many opportunities that helped me build my profile and be good at what I am now and at the same time, I spent countless hours in the office, traveled all over the world representing the company, wrote numerous pages of project deliverables and worked on a number of contracts with high-profile customers. I only wish that we will have the opportunity to work again in the future, under different circumstances. Period.
• May 2016: On May 9th I started working for NEUROPUBLIC, a Greek SME with about 100 employees. A much different corporate environment, with different structure, needs and requirements. It was (and still is) a big challenge for me to apply my experience and knowledge in a new context, as the company's main activity is Information Systems in various contexts but my work is focused on Smart Farming (so there is a great connection with my previous experience). I am currently serving NEUROPUBLIC as the Outreach & Networking Manager, being responsible (among others) for the design and implementation of its online presence strategy (including social media and other forms of digital content), representation in events and work with the existing and potential future networks of NEUROPUBLIC.
• July 2016: Participated in MEDHACKATHON 2016 with a presentation on using open data for smart farming services - presenting the use case of NEUROPUBLIC.
• October 2016: I authored my first newspaper article on the Smart Farming work of NEUROPUBLIC (digital version here - initially published in the printed version of the newspaper); it was a collaborative work and more articles followed in the next months, describing the smart farming pilots of the company.
• Autumn/Winter 2016: I represented NEUROPUBLIC in a number of events, including the COPA-COGECA Congress of European Farmers 2016 and the collocated GAIA EPICHEIREIN Congress in October, Corallia's si-Cluster partners' meeting, the WE MED Conference of the ENI CBC MED Programme exploring collaboration opportunities with Mediterranean countries etc.

This is more or less how things moved on 2016 for me; major changes, major events and lots of work. Of course there were many-many other things that I did in 2016 but the list would grow more than I would like... In any case, I am really curious to see how the list will evolve in 2017, that's for sure!

Exploring collaboration opportunities among Mediterranean countries: The WE MED Conference

The WE MED Conference took place in Athens, Greece on December 16th, 2016. It was an event of the ENI CBC Med programme, aiming at bringing together various types of stakeholders interested in joining forces towards addressing common issues in the Mediterranean countries. The programme itself provides both the framework and the funding needed for materializing collaboration among Med countries.

I was informed about the event a month ago; still, the registration was already closed due to high participation. My persistence along with kind responses from the organizing team granted me a place in the waiting list and then I was informed that I would be among the participants. And I was glad I would.

The event was organized in three themed sessions:

1. Get Inspired: Consisted of successful use cases of collaboration among Mediterranean countries (presenting projects funded by the programme) as well as the views of key stakeholders. I found this session really appealing as it provided the human face of the collaboration; instead of having these typical slides including lists of deliverables of projects, there were real people (like farmers, researchers and entrepreneurs, to name a few) that explained how their lives were positively affected by the aforementioned collaborations.
2. Learn: It consisted of a number of presentations about the ENI CBC Med programme, covering different aspects. The slides provided the necessary background to participants in order to understand the concept and opportunities that may be available for funding collaborations of innovative groups and ideas. Lots of useful information on the eligibility of countries and thematic areas, restrictions and guidelines.
3. Connect: A purely networking session, allowing participants with common expectations to get in touch, exchange ideas and find common ground to work on projects that would address common challenges. The main Conference room was split into numerous smaller places with card boards used as whiteboards for brainstorming, matching profiles of participants with needs of organizations and discussing on issues of common interest.

Warm stories of #Entrepreneurship, #innovation & #collaboration presented at the 1st session of the #WEMED Conference pic.twitter.com/KDbk3YjBuZ

— V. Protonotarios (@vprot) December 16, 2016

The event provided me with the opportunity to get to know and talk to people from various countries, working on different topics and looking for partners in order to address common challenges. As I was participating on behalf of NEUROPUBLIC, I focused on sharing information about our smart farming services and see how they could meet the needs of potential stakeholders from other Med countries; the possibility of applying our approach in different contexts sounded appealing and I managed to identify at least a couple of cases which we could follow up after the Conference. Apart from that, I was well-informed about the possibilities provided by the programme in turning such collaborations into projects.

Interested in #SmartFarming in #Mediterranean countries? Check out our proposal at the #WEMED Conference Cooperation wall! pic.twitter.com/hGQt40Zvid

— NEUROPUBLIC (@Neuropublic) December 16, 2016

From an organizational perspective, I was happy to see that the organizers had already defined a Twitter hashtag (#WEMED) so that all tweets would be grouped and easily retrievable. During the Conference I was tweeting using both my personal Twitter account and the NEUROPUBLIC one, trying to cover different aspects of the event and boost the dissemination of its updates. There was also a Cooperation Wall; a huge whiteboard where participants could stick post-it notes with their ideas and contact details. I surely made use of that functionality as well and found the idea brilliant.

The Conference organizers had also engaged Alex Hughes from Drawnalism, who always does a great work in depicting ongoing discussions in the form of cartoons - a great visualization mean if you ask me! On top of that, everything was well-organized; something that must have been a challenge considering the relatively high number of participants.

Can't help but love such drawings; they give a different perspective to a Conference like #WEMED! https://t.co/pNSNxr1HL0

— V. Protonotarios (@vprot) December 16, 2016

If you are interested in learning more about the outcomes of the WE MED Conference, you can go through the summary provided by the programme team - you can also watch some of the Conference's video recordings via the ENI CBC Med Programme YouTube channel.

I can only thank the organizers of the event, not only for the kind invitation but also for hosting a successful meeting, engaging so many different stakeholders and doing their best in assisting them through networking and identifying funding opportunities for their innovative ideas.

si-Cluster and the ecosystem of space technology in Greece

...and how a company like NEUROPUBLIC can be a core part of it.

It may sound strange to many people (including me some months ago), but there is space technology in Greece. In fact, there are various types of stakeholders, such as private companies and university labs, working on the design and development of innovative earth observation hardware and software, building drones and sensors, working with major customers and collaborators and sharing their expertise abroad through projects and contracts. The place to find most (if not all) of these stakeholders is si-Cluster, an initiative established in 2009 jointly between Corallia and the Hellenic Association of Space Industries, is a Gold Labeled, industry-led and user-driven innovation cluster focusing on Space Technologies and Applications in Greece. Currently, the si-Cluster consists of more than 50 members; including both large businesses and SMEs.

NEUROPUBLIC is a member of the si-Cluster and so I had the opportunity not only to attend part of the si-Cluster Partnering Meeting that took place on Friday, December 2nd but also to make a short 3x3 presentation (3 slides in 3 minutes) on how NEUROPUBLIC is making use of space/satellite technologies (like earth observation ones). It felt nice to see that a SME like NEUROPUBLIC is actually implementing such technologies and data in its workflows, on which its smart farming services are based.



The aim of the meeting was for all si-Cluster members to be informed about existing opportunities, at national and international level, both public and private sector ones, and discuss opportunities for collaboration and alignment of existing efforts. There was also time for networking and getting to know everyone better, as the space technology ecosystem in Greece is obviously limited.

During the meeting I had the pleasure to meet again Dr. Jorge-Andres Sanchez-Papaspiliou, Chief Strategy and Financial Officer at Corallia - an acquaintance from the CAPSELLA project times (I was partially involved in the project as a part of the Agroknow team, contributing to its open data strategy and activities, among others). I also made some interesting connections with both SME representatives and university researchers working on the same topics but from different fields.



I was glad to see many references to precision agriculture in the slides of various participants and surprised to see so many different applications; however, most of them are still in lab testing phase. In any case, this is surely a sign that agriculture is one of the fields where space technology (referring to earth observation / remote sensing) finds a high number of practical applications.

GODAN: One network to rule them all?

Thanks to its core role in addressing food security at global level, the agrifood sector is not short on networks and initiatives; actually, there are numerous networks with global, regional and national scope that aim to bring together various types of stakeholders and align their efforts in addressing common problems. I am happy to have been directly (or indirectly) involved and participated in several networks like CIARD, FAO AIMS and other FAO initiatives and teams, EFITA, GFAR, CGIAR (mostly ICARDA) and GODAN, to name a few, through common projects, contracts and events.


My impression has always been that despite the fact that these initiatives are doing a great work in different aspects (e.g. capacity building and training, education, research, information and knowledge management) there was only loose connection (if any) between them. I was glad to see that FAO AIMS and CIARD joined forces at some point, and that there was even a joint event between CIARD and GODAN (the CIARD/GODAN Consultation meeting) in order to see investigate the way in which two big networks could collaborate and function as one entity (I still feel grateful for my participation in that event).

But why am I making this introduction?

I was recently browsing the latest issue of the GODAN newsletter only to realize that it has already managed to encompass various networks and related activities and work on harmonizing their activities. Apart from the description of  the numerous GODAN activities, the newsletter contained articles on:

• The call of LandPortal to stakeholders that work with land governance data;
• The upcoming Research Data Alliance Plenary meeting, focusing on its Agricultural Data Interest Group (IGAD) and its upcoming pre-Conference meeting;
• The upcoming International Conference on Metadata and Semantics (MTSR 2016), which always hosts a special track on “Metadata and Semantics for Agriculture, Food & Environment”. 
• Work from other RDA groups of interest to the open agricultural data community (the Legal Interoperability of Research Data: Principles and Implementation Guidelines published by CODATA)
• News from its partners, like the U.S. Government

That looks like a fine selection of what is taking place now at global level in the agrifood sector, in terms of open data. Previous issues of the GODAN newsletter follow the same approach, providing the space and means for sharing all related news and events. At the same time, GODAN explores all available opportunities for collaboration, like attracting new members and ensuring its presence in related events (like the International Open Data Conference and the RDA Plenary meetings) and participating in joint projects with other key organizations. In this way, GODAN operates as the "umbrella" organization (or meta-network) that was so much needed in this ecosystem, coordinating existing efforts and making sure that everything is in place and working properly. So far, GODAN has managed to establish a strong member base of more than 400 partners all over the world, including government and governmental organizations, NGOs, SMEs and private sector - something that no other network has managed so far.

GODAN Summit 2016; another successful GODAN event

I am always looking forward to hearing more about GODAN and its updates and I couldn't be more optimistic about that. It has the potential, the resources and the vision to do great things for agriculture and nutrition and on top of that it is guided by a great team - the GODAN Secretariat (you know who you are!). It seems that GODAN is much more than an open data network; it is the missing piece of a puzzle - the missing spark plug of an engine that runs on open data. Now that more or less all initiatives are into open data, GODAN's role becomes even more important.

One ring to rule them all - one network to coordinate them (Image source: http://yudian46.deviantart.com/art/One-Ring-To-Rule-Them-All-304630915) 

P.S. If you're working with open data in the agrifood sector than you have to register for the GODAN Newsletter and if your organization does the same, it should consider joining GODAN as a partner; after all, it's all about openness :-)

How to exploit Twitter for documenting a conference - and what to avoid

About ten days ago ago, I attended a two-day event (the COPA COGECA Congress of European Farmers 2016) during which I was tweeting using the Twitter account of one of the organizers of the event (our @GAIA_Brussels one). Everything was properly set up and there was a hashtag (#DynamicAgri) to be used in all tweets made during the event which was properly communicated to the participants. Through a coordinated action between the social media people of the different organizing bodies, we managed to have a relatively high number of tweets with the specific hashtag, describing the progress and outcomes of the congress. This can be used as a reference in the future and can also be visualized in different ways (see for example the Storify board we created for this purpose). It should be noted that the specific hashtag is used by COPA COGECA in various instances so it was not unique; however, this allowed all tweets made during these days to be linked ans on top of that, all these to be part of COPA COGECA's more general timeline.

I love it when large networks like @COPACOGECA make good use of #socialmedia for information sharing! #DynamicAgri pic.twitter.com/PCADwtIi0T

— V. Protonotarios (@vprot) October 6, 2016

The next day was the 3rd Panhellenic Congress on the Development of Greek agriculture, organized by GAIA Epicheirein. Since we wanted to have a bilingual coverage of the event (English and Greek), we had two people (one of them was me again!) tweeting at the same time - along with the rest of the participants of course - in these two languages. The first thing we did was to define the hashtag of the Congress (#GAIACongress16) so that we could "link" all tweets made during the Congress and also to make sure that all participants were aware of the hashtag - so we just added it on the slide that was projected before and during the breaks of the Congress. Again we were successful in documenting the event through Twitter and this documentation can also be used as a reference in the future or visualized in different ways (see for example the Storify board we created for the specific event).

Well, that's me trying to keep up w/ Congress discussions & #Twitter feed, surrounded by notes & gadgets :-) https://t.co/7nB6C3pa7B

— V. Protonotarios (@vprot) October 6, 2016

On the other hand, some days ago, NEUROPUBLIC's Chairman attended a global conference (in fact he was invited to talk about smart farming in one of the round tables). Despite the fact that there was a Conference hashtag promoted the days before the event, I soon realized that it was not actually used by the participants of the Conference - not even by the organizer (it was a 50-50 chance for them to use it, based on my calculations). As I was trying to figure out what was going on during the event, I contacted the organizers through Twitter asking them to use the hashtag that they had already proposed; however, I got no response. As a result, I spent some time during the Conference trying to collect bits and pieces from the participants that tweeted (added them to a Twitter list) in order to keep up with the outcomes of the event. I soon gave up, as I realized that some of them either stopped tweeting or were tweeting only about their / their organization's participation in the event and it was challenging to find out who else was tweeting during the event. As if this was not enough, the same hashtag was already being used for totally different purposes like sports and fashion; a fact that led to "noise" in the specific Twitter timeline and made following the progress almost impossible.... 

Preparation is the key: not only you have to come up with a proper (and unique) hashtag about an event, but you also have to properly communicate it before and during the event to the participants (physical and remote) and make sure that it is actually used. It does take some effort to prepare things in the right way, but then implementation is easier for everyone and the results will make up for it.

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.

Seeing the progress of GODAN through the years

It has been more than two years since the joint CIARD-GODAN consultation meeting took place at the FAO HQ in Rome, Italy. I had the opportunity not only to attend but to actively participate in the meeting, sharing my thoughts on the way that communication should take place both internally (referring between the GODAN Secretariat and GODAN members) and externally (referring to the communication of the GODAN outcomes to external stakeholders). Things were a bit abstract back then and started formulating over the next moths.

Several months later, I also had the opportunity to contribute (as a co-author) to one of GODAN's milestone publications (jointly prepared with the Open Data Institute team with contributions from other stakeholders, too) titled: "How can we improve agriculture, food and nutrition with Open Data?". The specific publication has been widely discussed and referenced since then and was also presented during the International Open Data Conference 2015, by Dr. Cathie Woteki (Under Secretary for United States Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Research, Education, and Economics (REE) mission area and the Department's Chief Scientist,, too) and Liz Carolan (ODI) - the person coordinating the authoring of the publication along with Fiona Smith (also ODI). The publication highlights the role of open data in addressing food security at a global level, presenting a number of use cases where open data made the difference in the agrifood sector.



And this brings us to 2016, at the GODAN Summit 2016, and while in the meantime a number of GODAN-related events have taken place both at internal (addressing only GODAN partners) and public level (engaging all stakeholders).

The GODAN Summit 2016 took place some days ago - a global event attended various types of stakeholders from all over the world, including policy makers and representatives from governments, open data initiative leaders, NGOs, global private organizations opening up their data, open data evangelists, etc. - you know who you are & who were there :-)

There were companies exhibiting their open data-powered products and services, networking taking place, journalists and media making the most out of the conversations taking place. But most importantly, there was the will to connect all the open data initiative in the agriculture, food and nutrition sector and provide them with the tools to enhance interoperability. Unfortunately, I did not have the opportunity to watch closely the outcomes of the Summit despite the fact that there was a live streaming and an extremely active Twitter stream (check out the #GODANSummit2016 hashtag), based on which a lovely Storify stream was built.

A lot of things have changed since GODAN's first era; referring to people involved in the Secretariat, affiliations of people involved as members or advocates (including me) and others; what remains the same (and in fact keeps getting even better) is the will and coordination of both various types of organizations & policy makers and the corresponding activities towards the facilitation of all steps in the process - ranging from opening up data to finding innovative ways to exploit them for the common good which is addressing food security at a global level.

I only feel privileged to have been a part of GODAN since its first steps and had the opportunity to contribute to its progress to the extend possible (from my side). I feel excited to see it growing day by day and meeting its short- and long term goals, one step at a time. I will keep watching closely its activities and progress and I strongly recommend that everyone involved in open data in the agrifood sector does the same.

<div class="storify"><iframe src="//storify.com/yangbodu/global-open-data-for-agriculture-and-nutrition-sum/embed?header=false" width="100%" height="750" frameborder="no" allowtransparency="true"></iframe><script src="//storify.com/yangbodu/global-open-data-for-agriculture-and-nutrition-sum.js?header=false"></script><noscript>[<a href="//storify.com/yangbodu/global-open-data-for-agriculture-and-nutrition-sum" target="_blank">View the story "Global Open Data for Agriculture and Nutrition Summit" on Storify</a>]</noscript></div>

Getting started with Asana

I have used several tools that aim at boosting productivity in the past and keep using a handful of them for various purposes - including but not limited to Trello, Evernote and Slack. Each one of them has its strong points and usually focuses on specific aspects (e.g. online collaboration, task management, instant messaging and enhanced communication etc.).

NEUROPUBLIC is using Asana for coordinating work between different teams, so I was quickly introduced to this tool, too. I created my account and joined the corporate board within minutes.

A nice reminder sent by Asana through email some time ago

Asana is based on teams, which consist of a number of collaborators/members. Each team can have a number of common projects, and each project consists of tasks and sub-tasks. Tasks can be assigned to specific members and other members can follow the specific task. A task can contain file attachments or files from Dropbox, Google Drive etc., comments, links etc. Deadlines can be set for tasks and sub-tasks and there are tags/labels to be defined by the users.

It took me some time to get used to this new tool; it is not the fastest available nor the most user-friendly one but it has so many functionalities (e.g. creating a new task with specific followers just by forwarding an email to a specific address) that can really help teams in getting things done. Asana can also be used during meetings for keeping notes/minutes, define next steps in the form of new tasks, assign tasks to specific people (meeting participants), define milestones (deadlines) so by the end of the meeting you have everything documented and ready to move to the next steps.

There is a wealth of guides and documentation for Asana that can help anyone learn how to master the platform for different uses. I tend to visit the official page as well as third-party ones not only for help, but also for finding new ideas and innovative uses of this tool.

On the different types of interoperability and the concept of agricultural data

I have been involved in various instances where interoperability between different sources of content was the main issue - ranging from the early days of enriching the Organic.Edunet Web portal and collections with content from external sources (such as the OER Commons Green collection) to complex content aggregation workflows of heterogeneous data in the context of the agINFRA FP7 project (the project that gave birth to AGINFRA) and a recent contract with UN FAO regarding the status and potential of various levels of interoperability in the fisheries and aquaculture sector. All these instances allowed me to get to know more about metadata schemas and vocabularies, standards for exchanging metadata, digital repositories and how they communicate with each other, mapping and transformation of metadata schemes to another standard etc.

I was recently invited to complete a questionnaire regarding open data standards and that brought me back to the basics; what are the different types of interoperability that exist out there? I could very quickly think of the following:

• Semantic interoperability, referring to the use of standards for the description (metadata) and the classification (Knowledge Organization Systems such as vocabularies) of data;
• Technical interoperability, referring to the use of standards for the exchange of data, such as the OAI-PMH standard for metadata but also the use of standard file formats for sharing data (e.g. XML, CSV, JSON etc.);
• Legal interoperability, referring to the use of standard licensing schemes, which would facilitate the exchange of data in legal terms.

There may be a couple more out there but time is short for such an academic analysis.

 (Image source: https://xkcd.com/927/)

The same questionnaire referred to “standards for food and agriculture data”; but what exactly are agricultural data? One (including me) could argue that there may not be "food and agriculture data" as different data types. I have been through similar discussions in the past; however, it seems that there is no such thing as "food and agriculture data". This only refers to various types of data that are used in the agrifood sector or are produced in the agricultural context. In this context, “standards for food and agriculture data” are the same as the rest of the data, such as the standards applying to economic, statistical, trade, weather forecasts, soil maps, sensor data, weather forecasts, earth observation data, demographic, bibliographic, metadata etc. It is usually only the context that changes - not the standards or the data themselves.

If we accept this generic point of view, then standards like ISO (see for example the ISO/IEC 11179 standard), metadata standards like Dublin Core, file format standards like ODF, classification standards like OWL and linked data standards like RDF could also be applied in the case of agricultural data. The same goes for technical interoperability standards like OAI-PMH and REST APIs; all these can be (and actually are widely) used in the agricultural sector and are essential tools for those of us working with agricultural information and knowledge management.

So, are there really agricultural data and if so, who could name some examples?