The Internet of Food & Farm 2020 (IoF2020) project is coming to an end on 31^st March 2021. On 16 to 18 March 2021 a final digital event was organized, gathering partners, experts, members of the European institutions and representatives of the Agritech industry. The event took place on three days, addressing on each day a different aspect: state-of-the-art technology, lessons learned during the project’s research, self-sustaining ecosystems of research and innovation. 

With over 900 registrations and more than 100 speakers, this digital event was a great opportunity for different stakeholders of the agricultural and agri-food sectors to meet and exchange. Registration came from 77 countries around the world, This event brought together different stakeholders from the large-scale project consortium and beyond.

During the three days, the accent was put on networking. The digital platform included a “speed networking” feature, that paired for 5 minutes two random participants. “Tables” in the “lounge” area allowed up to 8 participants to join a small videoconference with other attendees. During the breaks, an “agriquizz” and a “stretch your legs” sessions provided a change of pace. A different winner of the agriquizz was decided on each day of the event. The winners were later awarded a gift hamper.

The first day of the event was focusing on the experiences from the ground and the session were focusing on the technical aspects of the project. Ecosystem chairs and representatives from the use cases discussed the results of experiments and challenges encountered. From the use of blockchain technology for certification purposes to the tracking of livestock, a wide range of IoT solutions were used in these past 4 years.

The second day was dedicated to the impact and lesson learnt during the IoT deployment of all these solutions. During a full day of sessions, with up to 5 workshops happening in parallel, we tried to answer a few key questions. How to make sure that data sharing is done ethically? What are the valuable failures that were identified? What is the feedback from farmers?

SmartAgriHubs was introduced in 2 dedicated sessions on the last day of the event, “The SmartAgriHubs Innovation Portal” and “Synergies between IoF2020 & SmartAgriHubs”. As IoF2020 is ending, the legacy of the project will now be made available on our Innovation Portal. These sessions allow the transition from one project to another. You can watch the recordings of the sessions in the interactive program – click on the name of the session to watch it.

IoF2020 interactive program is available here.

The event was attended by professionals, member of the public and academics from all Europe and beyond. Policymakers from the European institutions participated in several sessions: MEP Bert-Jan Ruissen from the Agriculture committee of the EU Parliament and representatives from the Directorate-General for Agriculture and Rural Development of the European Commission, the Directorate-General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology of the European Commission, European Innovation Partnership (EIP-AGRI) and CEJA (European Council of young farmers).

IoF2020 and SmartAgriHubs cooperated on several topics over the years, including the Gender Task Force. Like SmartAgriHubs, IoF2020 is an EU-funded project under the Horizon2020 instrument and aimed to facilitate the uptake of IoT technologies in the agri-food sector. We are looking forward to preserving, celebrating and continuing their legacy.

SmartAgriHubs aims to ensure that our Digital Innovation Hubs reach their full innovation potential. One of the main activities of the project therefore is capacity building. After a series of well-visited webinars that revolved specifically around the capacity building of DIHs, we feel it is now time to take the following step in this capacity building process and for our DIHs to take the lead in their own growth. To realise this, we are now preparing a highly interactive program on our Learning and Exchange platform (LXP). Hopefully you as a DIH have seen the registration link and have registered by now! 

Learn

Exchange

The program is designed around two main pillars: the capacity building needs we got back from DIHs throughout the years that our project is already running; and the possibility to exchange on best (and worst) practices with other DIHs (peer exchange). On the platform, we will facilitate you in achieving both.  

First of all, we will ask you to do the DIH maturity assessment. This helps to set your own capacity building goals and helps us to do matchmaking. After the peer exchange, popular topics related to learning objectives such as access to finance, steps to develop a DIH, farmer-centric innovation, governance, skills, and other topics identified as interesting learning objectives. The project team will initiate the content creation in separate modules based on the learning objectives; the DIHs themselves will then actively explore the topic further. Another course will be offered to guide you through the creation of a business plan for your DIH. 

Every SAH Digital Innovation Hub is invited to enter the program. All we will require is doing the maturity assessment and a great motivation to share experiences. In this first wave of the program, we have room for 60 DIHs. So if you have not yet done so, please
sign-up!