Agrihub INSPIRE Hackathon 2021

The AgriHub INSPIRE Hackathon is already the 19th hackathon organised by the Plan4All association in the frame of AgriHub CZ&SK projet funded by SmartAgriHubs H2020 project. It is based on the traditional model of the INSPIRE Hackathon, which is not a single event, it’s a process that is designed to efficiently exploit the achieved results of previous hackathons on developing new innovations.

For participants, the main benefit of the INSPIRE hackathon is the opportunity to  access and become a member of an international knowledge community of practice. INSPIRE hackathon participants receive a diploma documenting and acknowledging their active participation. The top three jury-selected teams, based on a set of predetermined criteria, are offered the opportunity to contribute to peer-reviewed articles and citable publications documenting the outcomes and results of the events. It is hoped that this lasting legacy projects their career growth pathways.

The AgriHub INSPIRE hackathon has identified 8 challenges to support digital innovation hubs in Czechia and Slovakia. AgriHub CZ&SK project will support communication of ongoing innovation experiments (IEs) as well as new IEs discovered during organising INSPIRE hackathon with farmers. Its aim is to build bridges between the farming sector and research projects to make a better linkage with current research with farmers’ needs.

In total,  8 organisations (Czechia – Plan4all z.s., Czech Center for Science and Society, Agricultural Association of the Czech Republic, CzechInno; Slovakia – Slovak University of Agriculture in Nitra, Technical University of Kosice, ADDSEN s.r.o. and AGCO in Germany) offer a wide range of experienced capacities and relevant competence, with appropriate geographical coverage. The main ambition of the INSPIRE Hackathon is to boost digital innovation in a relatively immature environment with specific conditions central European space is facing after the recent societal changes. 

During the months of October – December, when the hackathon will take place, we offer you an unique opportunity to try out our new technologies and infrastructures, which will be open to all developers. At the same time, it will be possible to apply and integrate technologies into projects at your own discretion and experience. INSPIRE Hackathon opens up opportunities for cooperation in the development of various solutions with participants from all over the world, and at the same time offers everyone the enrichment of their own experience.

For each INSPIRE Hackathon, several challenges are defined in advance. Hackathon participants seek solutions for the challenges under the guidance of one or more mentors. The task of the mentors is to coordinate the team work within the challenge, ensure communication in the team and ensure that the team’s results are presented at the final virtual event, which closes the entire hackathon.  All results will then be published and integrated on the portals www.agrihub.cz and www.agrihub.sk.

PARTICIPATION & REGISTRATION

There are two virtual phases of this hackathon. The first phase of the INSPIRE Hackathon 2021 starts with actual hacking. Several challenges and their mentors will be defined and anyone can join the challenge (4th October). Virtual meetings and other means of communication will be used to advance the defined challenges. The mentor of each challenge will be responsible for communicating with the team members that join this challenge.

From 4th October we will gradually announce the challenges to give you the oportunity to think about which challenges you would like to take part in. The registration for this fully virtual hackathon starts on 4th October!

All the teams that participate in the hackathon will be invited to present their project results during the final virtual event of the hacakthon which is a virtual workshop that will be organised at the end of November. The date is to be confirmed. The teams will be asked to prepare a presentation showing their hackathon project results.

The registration for the challenges is open! Check the table below, choose the challenge and register for the hackathon HERE.

LIST OF CHALLENGES

TEAMPROJECT TITLE & DESCRIPTIONMENTOR
TEAM 1Crop Detection
Crop detection will be based on analysis of time series from Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 and other data using AI methods. These outputs will be offered to advisory services, financial and public sector.
Herman Snevajs, Iva Bartlova
TEAM 2Crop Status Monitoring
Crop status monitoring methods based on analysis of time series of Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 and other data (crop rotation, IoT, yield monitors, etc.)
Herman Snevajs, Vincent Onckelet
TEAM 3Agro Environmental Services
Agro-environmental services will provide uptake of Copernicus and INSPIRE to support agri-food and environmental opportunities.
Martin Tuchyňa
TEAM 4Irrigation Management
Irrigation management will provide recommendation for integration of existing climatic, IoT and Copernicus data.
Jakub Fuska
TEAM 5Extreme Weather
Extreme weather will provide recommendations for the integration of climate data, IoT and Copernicus data.
Tereza Šamanová
TEAM 6Drones utilisation for crop protection
Utilisation of drones for crop monitoring and application of pesticides/herbicides
Miroslav Konečný, Zuzana Palková
TEAM 7Analysis, 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.
Pavel Gnip, Jaroslav Šmejkal
TEAM 8Business cases for WhiteBoard
Identifying new business cases for utilization of MapWhiteBoard as a part of different applications or as a part of different solutions.
Karel Charvát, Runar Stein Bergheim

TIMELINE

  • Virtual hackathon kick-off 4th October 2021 
  • Hacking part of the hackathon 11th October – 7th December 2021
  • Final presentations or videos ready for the final virtual event – by 14th December

RESULTS

The Agrihub INSPIRE hackathon  focused on developments and innovations in agriculture, the environment, geospatial applications, remote sensing and GNSS is after two-month hacking over! More than 30 participants have contributed to all 8 challenges to support digital innovation hubs in Czechia and Slovakia. Results were evaluated by an international experts jury. The jury members Emilija Oreščanin (BioSense Institute), Bente Lilja Bye (BLB, Plan4all), Josef Hnojil (Geobusiness) and Jiri Panek (GISportal) announced the following winners for the Agrihub INSPIRE hackathon:

  • 1st place: Agro Environmental Services (presentation is available here)
  • 2nd place: Analysis, processing and standardisation of data from agriculture machinery for easier utilization by farmers
  • 3rd place: Business cases for WhiteBoard

Results of all teams can be seen below:

The Agrihub INSPIRE Hackathon is supported by the following organisations and projects:

Plan4all (https://www.plan4all.eu/) – Plan4all is a non-profit association sustaining and further enhancing the results of multiple research and innovation projects. It aggregates large open datasets related to planning activities in different specialisms areas transport, spatial and city planning, environment and tourism. Plan4all makes sure that open data are easily accessible for reuse, data are maintained and their quality is improved.

CCSS  (http://www.ccss.cz/en/) is a research association established by legal entities, which support research cooperation among Universities, public and private sectors. Activities of CCSS are oriented in a wide range of thematic areas implemented in International and European research projects related to environment, agriculture, planning, GI, ICT development, real estate and planning. Activities also extend to the field of information technology, spatial planning, advisory, education, sustainable development and the development of applications in the field of planning, smart cities, forestry, agriculture, agro-tourism, and farming.

 Slovak University of Agriculture in Nitra, as the only educational and scientific institution of this kind in Slovakia, provides university education in accordance with the Bologna strategy on the basis of scientific knowledge in the area of agriculture and related sciences. As the only agricultural university in Slovakia. SUA has an exclusive position within the Slovak universities and nation-wide field of activities. Its mission is to provide and ensure education, research and guidance so that the knowledge necessary for the development of agriculture and related industries and rural development in Slovakia is created, transferred into and interconnected with the international community. Together with the academic places of work SUA is part of the public universities network in the Slovak Republic.

ADDSEN is an SME established in Bratislava region, Slovakia. Its main focus is on innovation management, business development consulting and RTD activities related to usability of innovation. The core team has been performing innovation management from 2006 and was actively involved in Framework Programme Seven (FP7), Competitiveness Innovation Programme (CIP) and Horizon 2020 in numerous collaborative projects. The project team of ADDSEN includes specialists in domains of social sciences, requirements analysis, end user engagement, communication and innovation management.

Agricultural Association of the Czech Republic is a legal entity that is a voluntary, independent, non-governmental and non-political association of legal and natural persons – agricultural business companies, agricultural cooperatives, sales cooperatives and companies, farmers and other entrepreneurs whose business is primarily focused on agriculture, farming, breeding and services – which have been associated to protect their economic and social interests in accordance with the laws of the Czech Republic.

CzechInno (CzechInno, Association of Legal Entities) is a Czech non-governmental non-profit organisation founded in 2011 to support innovative entrepreneurship in the Czech business and public sphere. In its role of an innovation matchmaker connecting in its projects academia, enterprises and public sphere, it specializes in topics related to Industry 4.0 and efficient and fair implementation of digital innovations in business practice and daily life. In 2017, CzechInno became the founder of the Central European platform for digital innovations CEEInno, within which now more than 120 stakeholders in the field of digital innovations from all over the Europe and world are grouped and cooperate on exact individual projects to raise the level of digital maturity of business and society.

AGCO is a global leader in the design, manufacture and distribution of agricultural equipment. Through well-known brands including Challenger®, Fendt®, Massey Ferguson® and Valtra®, AGCO Corporation delivers agricultural solutions to farmers worldwide through a full line of tractors, combine harvesters, hay and forage equipment, seeding and tillage implements, grain storage and protein production systems, as well as replacement parts.

 

SmartAgriHubs(https://smartagrihubs.eu/The project aims to realise the digitisation of European agriculture by fostering an agricultural innovation ecosystem dedicated to excellence, sustainability and success.  To this end, SmartAgriHubs employs a multi-stakeholder approach and covers a broad value-chain network across all EU member states. The consortium includes a diverse network of start-ups, SMEs, business and service providers, technology experts and end-users. The end-users form the core of the project and are the driving force behind digital transformation. The development and adoption of digital solutions is achieved by a tight ecosystem of 140 Digital Innovation Hubs embedded within 9 Regional Clusters, which are led by organisations that are closely involved in regional digitisation initiatives and funds.

RDA-CZ Node (https://www.rd-alliance.org/groups/rda-czech-republic) – National Node Services and Activities in support of the “RDA Europe 4.0” Project. The objective of RDA Europe 4.0 is to become the centrepiece for an EU Open Science Strategy through a consolidated European network of National Nodes, bringing forward an RDA legacy in Europe, providing skilled, voluntary resources from the EU investment to address DSM issues, also through an open cascading grant process. The ambitious 27-month project comprises 5 Partners and a number of Third Parties (the National Nodes) all of which are domain skilled, complementary institutions and organisations that have been drivers of RDA in Europe since its launch in 2013.

LIVERUR (https://liverur.eu/The LIVERUR project identifies Living Labs as innovative business models that are currently being developed in rural areas, and will conduct socio-economic analyzes to identify, describe and compare the differences between the new approach of Living Lab and more entrepreneurial traditional approaches (mass production, development of prices, optimizing cost structures with companies, rationalization).

PoliRural (https://polirural.eu/) – PoliRural will provide this knowledge by combining several key activities needed to design effective place-based, human-centric and forward-looking rural policies. These include actionable research that takes place within an inclusive learning environment where rural populations, researchers and policymakers come together to address common problems; an evaluation exercise that uses text mining to assess the perceived effectiveness of past or planned policy interventions; and a foresight study that tries to glean the development trajectory of agriculture and its allied sectors until 2040 using several scenarios in which the evolution of rural populations occupies a central place.

SmartAfriHub (https://www.smartafrihub.com/pt/home) The purpose is to design, develop and introduce a Smart Agriculture Innovative Hub – SMARTAFRIHUB. The platform will be used to connect people to the information. Firstly with integrating principles of social media like Blog, Forum, design Science Shop, which will be able to connect users with developers and researchers. And secondly by integrating different types of demo applications, where farmers, developers and researchers will have chance to cooperate, test different API for new solutions and also provide common experiments.

SIEUSOIL https://www.sieusoil.eu/  aims to develop sustainable and holistic soil management practices based on a harmonised land information system suitable for diverse climate and operation conditions along different EU and China locations.

 

 

AFarCloud http://www.afarcloud.eu/ – Farming is facing many economic challenges in terms of productivity and cost-effectiveness, as well as an increasing labour shortage partly due to depopulation of rural areas. Reliable detection, accurate identification and proper quantification of pathogens affecting both plant and animal health, must be kept under control to reduce unnecessary costs, trade disruptions and even human health risks.