Digital Innovations Hubs are one-stop shops that help companies dynamically respond to digital challenges and become more competitive. What are the current challenges your organization helps companies to face, and what services did you develop to address them?

So many companies and institutions contact us to help with various challenges. In short, the main challenges are broken food supply chains, staff shortages, up-skilling and re-skilling, food waste, the use of by-products, the promotion of short food supply chains, the declining interest of students in the agri-food sector and the availability of innovative technologies for smaller farms and businesses. 

We provide various services to solve these challenges. First of all, we work hard in organizing and implementing various training sessions, seminars, creative workshops, hackathons, conferences and forums. Also, we help universities develop study programs. What is more, we advise start-ups on attracting funding as well as validating innovations, helping commercialize products, performing digital audits, providing sector review services and helping select the most efficient technologies. We pay a lot of attention to involving companies in networking and introducing them to potential partners not only from our ecosystem but also from other sectors. We focus on communication both in influencing the general public's mood and understanding of the agri-food sector and in encouraging young people to choose a career in this sector. 

Since the start of your Digital Innovation, how did your portfolio of services evolve? Are you now focusing on specific services and why?

The portfolio of our services has been growing every year in response to market needs and the growth of our expertise. However, what we would like to highlight is not the growth of the number of services provided, but the qualitative leap in services and the sharp increase in the involvement and willingness of society and businesses to use them. 

It is worth mentioning that we have recently begun to play a major role in the aquaculture sector, robotisation and cross-sectorialism. We successfully discover the connections and help others exploit them between the agri-food sector and photonics, energy, logistics, environment, education, etc. 

How do you see the development of your Digital Innovation Hub in the next 5 years, with regard to funding sources and service portfolio?

We do not doubt that the portfolio of our services will grow, and the involvement of companies in our services will also increase. There will be rapid growth in the quantity and quality of our services. Today, the world is changing extremely fast due to COVID-19 and Russia's brutal aggression against Ukraine. We need to respond immediately, so it is difficult to single out the most relevant services after five years. However, we do not doubt that increasing sustainability, efficiency, access to technology, cross-sectoral development, food waste and education will be the areas in which we will create the greatest added value for all - business, society, our country, our continent and nature. 

What would be your advice to an emerging Digital Innovation Hub in the agri-food sector?

Five tips: 1) Accurately analyse the situation, needs and challenges of the agri-food sector in your country. 2) Refine your offered services and present them in an understandable way to the end-user. 3) Be active and invest in making your name the brand of quality and credibility. 4) Actively use the opportunities of international networking 5) Do not stay in your ecosystem only, cooperate actively with other sectors and look for common perspectives. 

Website: www.agrifood.lt  

Social media:  

FB: https://www.facebook.com/AgriFood.lt  

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/agrifood-lithuania-dih  

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/­UCxuZLiM7S6CeNPUNLmnX0wQ 

Digital Innovations Hubs are one-stop shops that help companies dynamically respond to digital challenges and become more competitive. What are the current challenges your organization helps companies to face, and what services did you develop to address them?

PARCO AGROALIMENTARE FVG – AGRI-FOOD & BIOECONOMY CLUSTER AGENCY s.c.a r.l. (in short Agrifood FVG) is one of the nodes of IP4FVG, the Digital Innovation Hub of Friuli Venezia Giulia Region (north-eastern Italy). We are very focused on promoting the development of the regional agri-food and bioeconomy ecosystem, and we cooperate with regional clusters, such as DITEDI (dedicated to digital technologies). We help companies in tackling the most pressing current challenges, related to economic, environmental and social sustainability, resilience and strategic autonomy of value chains, and effective reaction to the consequences of the pandemic crisis. Furthermore, we have supported the Friuli Venezia Giulia Region in the development of a new trademark called “Io Sono Friuli Venezia Giulia” (I am Friuli Venezia Giulia), to promote all agri-food companies that decide to adopt virtuous practices of environmental, economic and social sustainability and to guarantee the traceability of raw materials. All the related collected information can be accessed by consumers through a QR code combined with the logo and applied to the products. The procedure to obtain this trademark is entirely digital and free, encouraging also small businesses to engage with digital technologies and open themselves to the bigger and globalized market, becoming increasingly competitive. Our website www.agrifoodfvg.it is a web platform facilitating agri-food companies to reach out to a series of targeted services and to create connections. Furthermore, we organize targeted webinars, cooperate for training courses with CEFAP, the regional VET centre for the agricultural sector, and we support SMEs in finding R&D partners.

Since the start of your Digital Innovation, how did your portfolio of services evolve? Are you now focusing on specific services and why?

Right after the first lockdown (February –April 2020), the most urgent need we perceived from the analysis of our target agri-food companies was related to finding new ways to help them effectively react to such a difficult and unexpected period. Most companies were not ready to switch the majority of their activities to the digital mode. Therefore, we have been highly motivated to evolve our services and to commit ourselves to identify new opportunities and transferring them to businesses. Since we are a BSO (Business Support Organization), our core purpose is to collect and assess the needs and expectations of our target SMEs, supporting them to overcome their challenges by introducing feasible and affordable solutions, to boost Friuli Venezia Giuliaregion’s agri-food sector’s strength and competitiveness. Furthermore, thanks to CREDAS project, financed by the SAH Open call SERVICE, we have deepened our fruitful collaboration with Associazione Clust-ER AGRIFOOD of Emilia Romagna Region, setting up a shared service portfolio that we will test in the next months, aimed at closing the existing gap among digital innovation demand and offer. We hope to mobilize investments of companies in digitization processes.

How do you see the development of your Digital Innovation Hub in the next 5 years, with regard to funding sources and service portfolio?

We expect that the activity of Agrifood FVG will be more flexible and open in the next five years. At the beginning of 2022 a new Open Foundation, Agrifood & Bioeconomy FVG Foundation, has been set up, reorganizing the agri-food ecosystem with a new and inclusive structure, in which different actors and stakeholders can interact directly and work together towards common goals. The FAB FVG Foundation is today controlling the majority of AgrifoodFVG capital. The same agri-food enterprises can join the Foundation and at the same time, this subject’s configuration is the optimal tool to get access to funding sources at a regional, national and European level. On the other side, we hope that the new service portfolio that we are about to launch in the framework of the CREDAS project will become more structured, also in collaboration with the other nodes of our Regional DIH, generating a positive impact on our territory and boosting the digital and green transition of agrifood companies.

What would be your advice to an emerging Digital Innovation Hub in the agri-food sector?

Our advice to an emerging Digital Innovation Hub is:

1. to develop strong relationships with all stakeholders of the innovation ecosystem,
2. create concrete networking opportunities,
3. be updated on the developments of the market and technological innovation,
4. carefully listen to target companies in order to have a clear understanding of their strength and weaknesses, needs and expectations.

The core business should always be the support of businesses in their competitive growth process, unlocking their innovation and sustainability potential, thus contributing to solving key societal challenges of our time.

Digital Innovations Hubs are one-stop shops that help companies dynamically respond to digital challenges and become more competitive. What are the current challenges your organization helps companies to face, and what services did you develop to address them?

Today, dairy farms are under a lot of pressure: they have to produce more milk with less input to remain economically viable while maintaining a high level of animal welfare. Farmers are more and more turning to precision farming technologies -such as automatic milking or cow monitoring systems- to help them face these challenges. However, as a veterinarian and a researcher with 10 years of experience, I couldn’t help but notice that the on-farm implementation of technology and data is often suboptimal and that the promised results are not always achieved. Precision technology requires a different, more data-driven approach to farming.  

That is why I started the consultancy firm Cow Coach: to support dairy farmers with the integration of precision farming so that they can get a better return on investment and improved animal health levels. We offer 1-on-1 coaching for dairy farmers looking to invest in technology and need independent advice. Additionally, Cow Coach also collaborates with research institutes and technology providers to co-create and validate new, demand-driven products and services. In short, Cow Coach aims to bridge the current gap between farming, engineering and veterinary medicine.  

Since the start of your Digital Innovation, how did your portfolio of services evolve? Are you now focusing on specific services and why?

In the beginning, our efforts were mostly focused on the end-user: the dairy farmer. However, dairy farmers are surrounded by many different stakeholders, such as the farm vet, the nutritionist, the claw trimmer, the milking technician, the accountant, farm personnel and family members. To utilize the full potential of technology and data, we need to actively include all parties involved. With the support of SmartAgriHubs, we aim to create a new service model in the following months to promote interdisciplinary collaboration and data exchange between farmers, advisors, and veterinarians.

How do you see the development of your Digital Innovation Hub in the next 5 years, with regard to funding sources and service portfolio?

In the coming 5 years, Cow Coach will focus on growing and diversifying its customer base by developing strategic partnerships with complementary service providers. Nowadays, Cow Coach addresses the integration of precision technologies and digitization for animal health and herd management – but ultimately I want to be able to offer a complete, holistic solution for dairy farmers and cover all different aspects of farm management, including economics, soil health, manure treatment, milk processing, climate impact and more.  

In the long run, we might also need to rethink the traditional business model of farm advisory services. Perhaps buyers and supermarkets would be willing to pay for certain services if they can help farms reach certain sustainability goals (for instance, through carbon storage or biodiversity). In the end, we create added value, not only for the farm but for society as a whole.  

What would be your advice to an emerging Digital Innovation Hub in the agri-food sector?

Bearing in mind that we are also still learning and growing, our advice for new Digital Innovation Hubs would be: “Think big, start small.” The agri-food sector is a complex environment with many different stakeholders and regulatory systems. It helps to start with a very specific, well-defined use case before you move on to larger projects. You learn a lot when you’re in the field!  

The website: https://cowcoach.be/ 

Twitter: https://twitter.com/cow_coach 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CowCoachBEL 

Digital Innovations Hubs are one-stop shops that help companies dynamically respond to digital challenges and become more competitive. What are the current challenges your organization helps companies to face, and what services did you develop to address them?

We notice a large cyclical activity of enterprises focusing on internal development or their products. These cycles are closely related to the incentives created by national and international financial programs supporting development, especially in the field of digitization, IoT or cybersecurity. Such activity concerns various sectors. At DIH Agro Poland, we focus mainly on helping partners from the agricultural and food sectors, but not only. The most popular service is, of course, helping in finding sources of financing (ideas and Proof of Concept (PoC)), especially open calls of European projects, regional, environmental and development programs. Defining the appropriate financing is just the beginning of the path on which we take our partners. Despite great ideas and sometimes long experience in the market, companies need care and preparation for the proper implementation of the project. Increasing the awareness of project management and their settlements, technical expert assistance, access to laboratories and advanced research equipment can enhance the quality of developed solutions. 

We help enterprises, especially smaller ones, also in improving their operation through process optimization or design thinking workshops. 

Since the start of your Digital Innovation, how did your portfolio of services evolve? Are you now focusing on specific services and why?

From the beginning, DIH Agro Poland was very focused on technological and expert services due to founding partners with high technical competencies (PSNC and L-PIMR). A stable basis of hard skills and access to laboratories and staff allowed us to develop the products of our partners who trusted our competencies. We collected more and more needs from the market and developed a way to turn ideas into PoC and products. Another added service was the search and acquisition of funding for projects and ideas. We started cooperation with foundations and clusters of producers to identify their needs. We further developed cooperation with networks of agricultural advisors. And we sent the collected consolidated feedback to the several ministries, from which we also received support and willingness to cooperate. 

At present, we are trying to engage most of the ecosystem's potential. We cooperate with VC in the field of project support, comment on national policies, and indicate development directions for the new national competitions (we are particularly proud of the support of the very successful AgroTechat the NCBR competition) and we expect further editions. I hope that thanks to the SmartAgriHubs project, we will strengthen contacts and international technology exchange even more. 

How do you see the development of your Digital Innovation Hub in the next 5 years, with regard to funding sources and service portfolio?

DIH Agro Poland through its partners is involved in two EDIH candidates (regional and sectoral), therefore we are already developing the competencies of our staff and the potential to provide large and comprehensive services for small and large companies. We develop customer service standards in such a way that none of our partners feels neglected, and at the same time, we want to increase the number of services provided because the interest is high and through the implementation of subsequent use cases, the number of new customers is constantly growing. 

First of all, in 5 years we would like to have our own fully digital farm where we will be able to show all the pros and cons of implemented and tested solutions operationally. Raising awareness among farmers and end-users is our main task for the coming years. Nothing tames farmers better with technology than being able to touch and test. We want to enable them to work with modern solutions on a daily routine basis. 

What would be your advice to an emerging Digital Innovation Hub in the agri-food sector?

Gather all your strongest competencies and services first. Go out to an external client and conduct a dialogue with him on how the selected services can be useful to the widest possible group of recipients. Develop them and adapt them to their needs. Constantly look for partners who can add value to your services and include their offers in the overall catalogue. In the next step, register on the SAH Portal and conduct a DIH Maturity Assessment to discover in which areas your DIH can still develop. The DIH philosophy is a process of continuous improvement based on the development of technological services, increasing competencies, building cooperation and exchanging information with other members of the ecosystem. In the near future, European Digital Innovation Hubs will be selected, both specialized (sectoral or technological) and regional ones, with whom it is worth establishing cooperation. In addition, all you need is a smile, a willingness to help and sometimes a lot of patience and self-denial to achieve your goals. But it probably comes in handy in every job.

Digital Innovation Hub 

https://smartagrihubs.eu/portal/network?id=8083 

Digital Innovation Hub 

Competence Center 

https://smartagrihubs.eu/portal/network?id=460 

Digital Innovations Hubs are one-stop shops that help companies dynamically respond to digital challenges and become more competitive. What are the current challenges your organization helps companies to face, and what services did you develop to address them?

Leveraging on its favoured position and assets, our Hub helps companies to face the challenging step of testing innovative solutions developed for the agri-food chain in the circular economy and environment sustainability fields. Market access is particularly challenging in the agricultural sub-sector, especially for innovative technologies, disrupting the business as usual. The Innovation Center Giulio Natta makes several hectares of fields available for testing solutions and proving their effectiveness, thus acting as a showcase for farmers. Our fields are managed by external growers, who are put in contact with innovative solutions using our interaction; in this way, we enable innovators to make their solutions tested by potential end-users, and we help farmers become familiar with innovation. Fields can also be integrated with devices developed by other startups connected with the Innovation Center Giulio Natta, providing an additional service to companies. Open-air labs come with workstations in shared or private office spaces as well as specific advisory services from our agronomists, engineers, and external collaborators, depending on the company’s needs.  

Since the start of your Digital Innovation, how did your portfolio of services evolve? Are you now focusing on specific services and why?

Our Innovation Hub is quite young, yet we are constantly evolving our portfolio of services. In the beginning, the focus has been on providing coworking spaces in a neo-rural environment, to bring young people and entrepreneurs closer to peri-urban rural areas. The pandemic really challenged this model, due to working from home and shared places being perceived as unsafe. We hence shifted towards promoting test fields and spaces for pilot installations, providing working spaces as an added service to that. Test fields and technical support can also come together with financial support for startups willing to work in our spaces, in the form of equity seed capital. Currently, we are defining a new possible service, integrating innovative solutions as parts of our “smart land”, a model based on reducing natural resource consumption and improving value and quality of life through nature-based solutions in peri-urban and rural areas.  

How do you see the development of your Digital Innovation Hub in the next 5 years, with regard to funding sources and service portfolio?

In five years, I see our Hub as the epicentre of the Nature-Based Solutions Valley. The place where innovations inspired by Nature can be tested and showcased and the living proof of the “smart land” as a viable model to transform peri-urban rural areas into innovative ecosystem service providers, connecting solutions developed by innovators from diverse fields. 
For this vision to materialize, we will make a great effort in consolidating our testing facilities and broadening the range of available testing, without leaving our core business. In doing this, we will keep using existing farm buildings, which will be restored and repurposed without subtracting soil. 
The activities will be financed mainly through the founders’ family office and other funds invested in our mother company. In addition to this, we will look for public tenders and grants. 

What would be your advice to an emerging Digital Innovation Hub in the agri-food sector?

My advice to an emerging Digital Innovation Hub in the agri-food sector is to focus on the real needs of startups and companies in the sector and start small, providing one service. This is something I keep reminding myself as well: listen to your market, understand what is needed out there, and start providing one simple service to address the problem or perceived lack. I suggest testing your solution and changing your approach if needed to continuously improve and keep your offer relevant to the addressee. In the end, we are here to facilitate the transition to a better agri-food system and our role is to provide valuable services which can make a difference for innovators in such a field. 

Website: https://innovationcentergiulionatta.com/  

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/innovation-center-giulio-natta/mycompany/?viewAsMember=true  

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/icgiulionatta/ 

Digital Innovations Hubs are one-stop shops that help companies dynamically respond to digital challenges and become more competitive. What are the current challenges your organization helps companies to face, and what services did you develop to address them?

Our company is mainly active in the primary production, more specifically the poultry and swine business. Among our customers, we count on veterinary practices as well as different partners in the production chain, including farmers, technology developers, feed mills, slaughterhouses, and pharmaceutical companies. The type of services and projects that we offer are diverse, but always have in common that they are customer-tailored. When we work with developers, for instance, we act as technology intermediaries. We perform field-testing of new technologies and products in strong cooperation with potential end-users, to get their feedback, and learn the strengths and weaknesses of a product so that the end barriers for commercialization can be overcome. This also means that we search and test existing technologies that potentially could be used in veterinary practices up to the moment that enough know-how and added value are available for vets to implement in their daily work. In addition, we design and execute data projects that fit the farm-to-fork principle.

Since the start of your Digital Innovation, how did your portfolio of services evolve? Are you now focusing on specific services and why?

We started the company in December 2021. For us, it is early to expect a big shift in the portfolio. A general observation, however, is that we see the existence of many data silo’s along the entire production chain and therefore not extracting the entire potential that these data hold. I think that part of our future services will be exactly to identify these different silos and how they need to be merged to find new solutions.  

How do you see the development of your Digital Innovation Hub in the next 5 years, with regard to funding sources and service portfolio?

Since we were founded mainly from a veterinary background with strong links to the field, our current customers are mostly private companies. Also, due to the size of our current team, very little of our financing is coming from grants. Applying for this type of funding is time-consuming and requires a strict knowledge and follow-up of all the different types of grants, deadlines, and requirements. As we grow our network and become more mature, I think this type of funding source might grow. Where our current data project portfolio offers mainly solutions for individual partners among the production chain, I expect that this will change in the future towards a more bridging type of services among multiple partners of the production chain and with that also the complexity of the project types will increase.  

What would be your advice to an emerging Digital Innovation Hub in the agri-food sector?

Start your projects from a business point of view or, in other words, invest in listening to the needs and true hurtles of your customer and/or end-user. Too often I see the development of great technological tools for which only, later on, the producer is asking himself how to introduce it into the market and how to generate the added value from it.   

Another piece of advice: be prepared for resistance when introducing digitalisation. Assure that enough resources and time are foreseen to cope with change management among end-users.  The greatest idea coming out of a board-room meeting has very little chance for success if the entire team is not convinced. Therefore, invest at least as hard in the people using it as in the technology itself. Take their counterarguments seriously and let them personally experience the benefit of your innovation, co-development could do the trick.  

Our website is currently still under construction, and should not last much longer, but for now, you can find us on LinkedIn: (1) SYN+ BV: About | LinkedIn

Digital Innovations Hubs are one-stop shops that help companies dynamically respond to digital challenges and become more competitive. What are the current challenges your organization helps companies to face, and what services did you develop to address them?

VistaMilk aims to be an “agent of responsible growth for the Irish dairy and Agri-Tech industry by being a world leader in fundamental and translational research for precision pasture-based dairying”. VistaMilk has the capability to carry out research at any point along the dairy supply chain, by combining the knowledge and expertise of the partner research organisations. These include expertise in agriculture (Teagasc), sensor technology (Tyndall National Institute) machine learning and artificial intelligence (Insight Centre), and telecommunications technology (Walton Institute).

The areas of animal health, greenhouse gas emissions, and dairy processing efficiencies are those of most interest to VistaMilk industry partners. To address these issues, the focus of VistaMilk research is to integrate innovations in ICT -information communications technology in the agrifood-tech sector. Examples of this are developing sensors that facilitate on-farm diagnosis of diseases, the use of machine learning to develop a model that will predict grass growth rates, and the development of decision support tools that will aid the end-user in adjusting management practices to improve the sustainability of their business.

Since the start of your Digital Innovation, how did your portfolio of services evolve? Are you now focusing on specific services and why?

Challenges change as circumstances change. An example is the impact of the Russian-Ukrainian war on the people of Ukraine and the price of (farm) inputs, but also a discussion in Europe on the objectives of the Green Deal and its implications for food security. VistaMilk’s structure enables it to be agile to rapidly react to new challenges as they emerge. One example demonstrating VistaMilk’s agility was the development of the project on carbon sequestration, which is measuring fluxes in soil organic carbon across soil types. This research topic was not included in the original plan, but was developed to meet the changing needs of the industry as consumer interest in carbon grew. Other areas of research that have been developed include nitrogen use efficiency and the development of gut models. These areas have been identified by our industry partners as challenges to their businesses, which has informed the development of these research areas.  

How do you see the development of your Digital Innovation Hub in the next 5 years, with regard to funding sources and service portfolio?

VistaMilk continues to expand the range of research that is possible by adding new research organisations with alternative expertise. Several potential new areas of interest or challenges that may emerge towards the latter half of this decade and beyond include:

• The nutritional quality of plant-based protein products.
• Recombinant animal proteins through fermentation.
• Organic dairy farming.
• Demand for minimally processed, natural foods (without any negative impact on safety).
• Alternative proteins for animal and potential human consumption (Insect).

The expansion of VistaMilk to include more institutes and researchers, as well as stronger links with other SFI and Enterprise Ireland centres will strongly position the VistaMilk centre to pitch and secure research funding. Importantly also, the Impact platform in VistaMilk through its engagement with citizens will be able to pre-empt shifts in consumer trends and emotions, thus being proactive in approaching industry partners to advise on the emerging challenges.

What would be your advice to an emerging Digital Innovation Hub in the agri-food sector?

In the beginning, it is especially important that a digital innovation hub defines the area of research that it wants to explore and the type of industry partners it wants to attract. These will inform the strategy that the hub will need to use to attract potential partners. It will also help the centre to decide which projects to proceed with. However, as the hub develops and matures, it must be agile and change its priorities to meet the needs of its stakeholders. The hub must always be aware of the changing nature of their partner's needs.

Regular and open communication with partners is essential as it will both provide the insight required to be aware of changes in partners' needs as well as develop strong relationships which ensure the sustainability of the centre. 

Our website: https://www.vistamilk.ie/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/vistamilk/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/VistaMilk

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vistamilk/?hl=en

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/VistaMilk