VOIS - Area 1 - Module 7

  1. MODULE TITLE

Module 7: Building your Open Innovation ecosystem
  1. AUTHORS

Evangelia Chatzikonstantinou, Panagiotis Kallianis, Stylianos Portokalidis, Maria Symeonidou
  1. SHORT DESCRIPTION

Open Innovation Ecosystem

Managing to build an Open Innovation ecosystem, is certainly an important opportunity for SMEs in the agri-food sector to extend their value as businesses. The Open Innovation strategy will help them on this process via many ways. Following this strategy means that it will assist in developing IT skills and improving the digitalization of a business by using the opportunities given from Open Data and Big Data.

Apart from that, the most important aspect to be prioritized is Networking Development. Through networking, one can extend their collaborations, exchange innovative ideas with other SMEs and co-operate with public actors, such as chambers, municipalities, universities etc. Furthermore, Open Innovation strategy will assist in selecting the appropriate partners for entering wider markets and being more competitive, by doing strategic choices for every issue and by taking advantage of every opportunity given.
  1. LEARNING OBJECTIVES

    Upon completing this module, you should be able to:

  • organize an Open Innovation strategy and incorporate it in their business
  • evaluate the importance of Big Data and Open Data in Open Innovation
  • develop effective collaborations and build networks
  • apply the Open Innovation strategy when searching for and selecting appropriate partners for entering wider markets while being more competitive
  1. Training Content
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LOCAL CASE/EXAMPLE

CropSAT is a free internet program for farmers, user-friendly and without any log-in requirements in the limits of Copernicus. CropSAT is developed by the Swedish University of Agricultural Science (SLU), Hushallningssallskapet and Datavaxt, while the Danish Ministry of Agriculture is a part of this.

Through this program, farmers can watch how the biomass on their fields may change, when the Sentinel-2 satellite passes over Denmark. This satellite called Sentinel-2 has the NVDI vegetation index, where all data for the biomass are. CropSAT conclude all the Danish fields. Each farmer can find his own fields only by typing his farm-ID, and then selecting one specific field. After this he can find what kind of data Sentinel-2 recorded while passing by. In other words, every farmer has the opportunity to monitor his fields and learn the results from his previous crop management. More specifically, in the program’s map each farmer can see yellow and green colors. The first one means lower biomass in the field, while the second one means high biomass.

The farmer has the chance to type in kilo nitrogen per hectare in five levels. After his selection and based on it, the program will show an application map for the field according to the fertilizer input. If the farmer agrees with this application map, he can download the application file and transfer it to the tractor terminal. The result from this procedure is that fertilizer’s spread will be accomplished according to the application map, which based on farmer’s selection. The exact same procedure can be followed for pesticides.

Consequently, following this process every farmer can apply the right amount of fertilizer and pesticides, following precision agriculture techniques. Through this method there is no unnecessary or exceeded use of fertilizers and pesticides with all the well-known consequences for the environment and the health of consumers. Therefore, two goals could be achieved at the same time, better quality of crops, with higher protein content, better quality of environment, especially aquatic and subsoil environment and edible products of higher quality with no chemical residues.

In combination with the information provided by sensors and use of drones, farmers apply pesticides, fertilizers, watering in specific places where is needed, with cost-efficiency and better safety protection for farmers, since application is done by drones at very specific areas of the farm. The sensors collect and send information from the farms, such as leafy areas, chlorophyl level, temperature, watering potential etc. and the farms receive this information on their mobile phones or their computers.  The combination of CropSAT and data from sensors, has the role of a Decision-Support System Tool that is helping farmers take better, faster and more efficient decisions.

Nowadays, CropSAT has high impact as an internet program. In 2017 it had 7.300 unique users in Denmark and 4.100 in Sweden. Its utility will be increased since CropSAT has been translated in English. It is understandable, that from now the use of satellites in agriculture will be developed and extended.  ( www.copernicus.eu)

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