Agrihub INSPIRE Hackathon 2022

Date: 03/2022-05/2022  

The AgriHub INSPIRE Hackathon is the 20th INSPIRE Hackathon organized by Plan4All, this year within the AgriHub CZ&SK project funded by the SmartAgriHubs H2020 project. It is based on the traditional INSPIRE Hackathon model, which means that it is not a single event, but a process aimed at effectively using the results of previous hackathons focused on the development of new innovations. In this hackathon, we will therefore not only build on the Agrihub INSPIRE Hackathon 2021, which defined a total of 8 challenges aimed at supporting digital innovation centres in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, but we will also focus, for example, on the further development of Open Land Use for Africa or an application enabling the creation of application maps. 

For participants, the main benefit of the INSPIRE hackathon is the opportunity to join and become a member of the international knowledge community. Participants of the INSPIRE Hackathon will receive a diploma documenting and confirming their active participation. The top three teams, selected by a jury based on a set of predefined criteria, are offered the opportunity to contribute to peer-reviewed articles and citable publications documenting the outputs and results of the events. It is hoped that this lasting legacy will project their career growth paths.

During the months of April and May, when the hackathon will take place, we offer a unique opportunity to experience our new technologies and infrastructure, which will be open to all developers. At the same time, the technologies will be available to apply and integrate into individual challenges at your own discretion and experience. The INSPIRE Hackathon opens up opportunities to collaborate in the development of different solutions with participants from all over the world, while offering everyone the chance to enrich their own experience. 

PARTICIPATION & REGISTRATION

For each INSPIRE hackathon, several challenges are defined in advance. Participants of the hackathon seek solutions to these challenges under the guidance of one or more mentors. The role of the mentors is to coordinate the teamwork within the challenge, ensure communication within the team and ensure that the team’s results are presented at the final virtual event that concludes the hackathon.  All results will then be published and integrated on www.agrihub.cz and www.agrihub.sk.

A total of 16 published challenges can be participated in succession. You can choose one, several or all of them. It’s up to you! 

The registration for challenges is open! Register for the hackathon HERE.

This hackathon has two virtual phases. In the first phase of the INSPIRE Hackathon, we are hacking and brainstorming innovative ideas under the guidance of an experienced mentor. Communication within each team will be provided by virtual meetings, webinars and other means of communication such as Google Drive or Whatsapp. The mentor of each challenge will be responsible for communicating with the team members who join the challenge.

The second virtual phase, which is a virtual workshop, concludes the hackathon. In this workshop you will meet the members of the international jury and the top 5 hackathon results. The date is still to be determined. All teams participating in the hackathon will be invited to make a 10-minute video presenting the results of the challenge. These videos will not only be viewed by the jury, but will also be published online and will facilitate the general public to select the 3 winning solutions. 

TIMELINE

  • Opening of registration – 28 March 2022 
  • Virtual Hackathon – 1 April 2022 – 20 May 2022
  • Preparation of video presentations of results and final reports – by 20 May 2022
  • Final workshop and results announcement – TBD

LIST OF CHALLENGES

  1. Further development and testing of the application for creating application maps – this is the development of SmartAgriculture applications in agriculture and their massive testing directly by farmers
  2. Analytical tools for WhiteBoard – MapWhiteBoard is a completely new solution for map work, a kind of Google document for maps that allows collaborative work
  3. Food transport monitoring – this is about promoting local food and implementing quality monitoring during transport
  4. Climate analysis in the field – analysis of local sensor data in vegetation, it’s about understanding local climatic influences
  5. Analysis and visualization of sensor measurements – integration of AI technology and new interactive data visualization methods
  6. IoT and EO data integration – improving agricultural production prediction. This is a development of a solution that was selected last year in the WSIS competition as one of 90 global innovative solutions
  7. OLU4Africa – leveraging existing data for Africa and creating a single Land Use and Land Cover map for the whole Africa
  8. How to use and improve OLU 2.0 – OLU 2.0 is a new data model that not only incorporates Land Cover and Land Use, but allows for easy integration of local and regional data to create unique databases for landscape and regional process modelling. It can be used for modelling environmental processes, in agriculture but also for economic models
  9. A new social space for geographic information sharing and education – this is a new kind of portal primarily for geographic data that allows easy participation of citizens, students and others and supports easy content creation. In doing so, it builds on the principles of INSPIRE and GEO.
  10. Integrating QFild with the Innovation Hub – developing field data collection tools based on existing Open Source Software
  11. Automating the calculation of management zones based on yield potential – this is a method that will make it easier to prepare basemaps for farmers based on analysis of historical imagery
  12. Building a social space for Africa – similar to Experiment 9 with a focus on Africa
  13. Agro Environmental Services – Uptake of Copernicus and INSPIRE to support agri – food and environmental opportunities
  14. Irrigation management – Irrigation management will provide recommendation for integration of existing climatic, IoT and Copernicus data.
  15. Drones utilization for crop protection – Utilisation of drones for crop monitoring and application of pesticides/herbicides
  16. Analysis, processing and standardisation of data from agriculture machinery for easier utilization by farmers – Machinery monitoring challenge will provide the analysis, processing and standardization of data from the agricultural machinery and thus its easier utilization by farmers.

Register for the hackathon
A conference flyer for IAMO Forum 2022 is available here for download.

Lessons learned from PoliRural: the PoliRural pilot Apulia ex-ante evaluation

In the PoliRural project, the ex-ante evaluations were done while developing the Foresight packages of twelve pilot regions. The main task of ex-ante evaluations is to support the planning process of Regional Action Plans to help improve them and thus enable transformation processes these plans are aiming for.

During the Apulia ex-ante evaluation, different essential findings were found that helped to reformulate the Apulia Action Plan. The collaboration with stakeholders was helpful because some initial problems were individuated, such as:

  • The difficulty in understanding the vision of the Action plan;
  • Too long and dispersive list and descriptions of policy challenges;
  • Policy measures were not very clear.

In general, it seems that the stakeholders consider that the participation in the evolution of Foresight packages/Regional Action Plans has increased cooperation among involved stakeholders; the participation in the elaboration of Foresight packages/Regional Action Plans has increased insights by building alternative visions and scenarios, complementing information needs and reducing uncertainties; the involvement in the development of Foresight packages/Regional Action Plans has promoted learning and gaining skills at individual, organization, community (regional) level. At the same time, the stakeholders are satisfied with the involvement in elaborating foresight packages; the stakeholders trust in the process results and approve the elaborated Foresight packages/Regional Action Plans. In conclusion, they understand responsibilities for implementation, ways of performance, and readiness of the Action Plan implementation, but not completely.

The Foresight packages/Regional Action Plan elaboration process favoured the context of knowledge and cooperation within and between the Puglia pilot and the stakeholders. For this reason, the Apulia pilot has decided to involve the stakeholders more by increasing the meetings to draw up the final version of the action plan in the best possible way.

The work done so far by the Apulian pilot has undoubtedly had a positive impact in terms of research e collaboration with the Apulia stakeholders. The ex-ante evaluations made so far have allowed us both to understand the needs of the stakeholders and how to meet them. The future impacts we hope to achieve starting from the point to the attractiveness of rural areas by targeting young people, a current and future resource, followed by investment in knowledge of the importance of digitization in agriculture. The two points are linked because, as shown by various studies in Italy, whoever uses technological innovation in agriculture is a young person. The covid-19 pandemic has also allowed many people to work from home and return to rural areas, and it is undoubtedly one of the most critical opportunities to be seized.