NEUROPUBLIC’ s participation at Horizon 2020

Sustainable agriculture, food production systems, safe food production as well as assisting farmers in decision making are the objectives of an innovative proposal submitted in the context of the program “Horizon 2020 – IoT-01-2016 on IoT Large Scale Pilots” by a group of international organizations and companies, including NEUROPUBLIC S.A.

The project “DEMETER – Building a Data-Driven Innovative and Sustainable European Agri-Food Sector through IoT” is about the development and implementation of large scale pilot actions of smart agriculture, aiming at implementing loT technologies in existing corporations and procedures in the agricultural sector, in various agri-food environments, production sectors, systems and types of agricultural holdings. In this context, two pilots will be designed and implemented in Greece: (a) automated irrigation systems in bean farms (Kastoria and Prespes) and corn farms (Drama) and (b) traceability of beef and pork meat products (BIKAS S.A., Imathia).

Besides NEUROPUBLIC, some of the Greek companies and organizations participating in the proposal are, among others, GAIA EPICHEIREIN, BIKAS S.A., as well as the Institute of Communications and Computer Systems (ICCS) of the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA).
The budget of the submitted proposal exceeds €37 million and is being coordinated by the Waterford Institute of Technology in Ireland. This joint effort brings the best associates at European level together and aims to prove that an integrated approach based on Internet of Things technologies (IoT) can support sustainable agriculture and the food production systems, the production of safe food as well as the farmers in the decision making process.

NEUROPUBLIC S.A. (www.neuropublic.gr) is an innovative company specializing in the development of high demand integrated information systems and applications in Web and Cloud environment, that have been successfully in use for over 10 years by more than 800.000 end users in agriculture, local government and healthcare.  A pilot Smart Agriculture program has been initiated recently, based on telemetric stations designed by the company itself (GAIA TRON).

In the context of DEMETER project, NEUROPUBLIC will use the network it has already developed with the telemetric stations designed by the company itself, for the implementation of smart agriculture services such as smart/automated irrigation services for the pilot of irrigated crops and traceability services for the pilot of meat traceability of the project.

GAIA EPICHEIREIN S.A. (www.c-gaia.gr) is the result of the strategic partnership between NEUROPUBLIC, Piraeus Bank and more than 70 Greek farmers’ associations. The company supports a web platform developed by NEUROPUBLIC, offering services and systems for Greek farmers and other members of the agri-food chain (agronomists, retailers and consumers), with 725.000 total active users and 2 million subscribers. The services it provides include tools for farm management, electronic commerce of agricultural products, automation of bureaucratic procedures, e-learning and information, networking, traceability and precision agriculture. In the context of DEMETER project, GAIA EPICHEIREIN provides the end users that will participate in the aforementioned pilot programs.

BIKAS S.A. (www.bikas.gr) with registered offices in Veroia, includes modern facilities for slaughter, cold storage and cutting beef and pork meat, as well as processing, packaging and transport/distribution of these products with certified procedures in accordance with EN ISO 22000, HACCP standard and under IFS certification audit. The company already uses a traceability system according to national and European regulations. In the context of DEMETER project, BIKAS S.A. has been selected from all over Greece, after thorough investigations, to participate in the pilot program for the improvement of the services provided to its clients, through specific IoT solutions (equipment and web applications for personal computers and mobiles), automating the procedure of meat traceability.

The Institute of Communications and Computer Systems (ICCS – – www.iccs.gr) was established in 1989 by the Ministry of Education in order to carry out research and development activities in various telecommunication-related sectors, information systems and relevant applications. ICCS is closely associated with the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (SECE) of the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA). It engages extensively in programs co-financed by European Union. Since 2000, it has taken part in 347 European innovative research projects (being a supervisor for 52 of them). For these activities it has been funded with more than €100 million by European Union. In the context of the DEMETER project, ICCS will be responsible for the integration and interaction of various heterogeneous technology solutions brought also by the project associates, as well as for the assurance of data interoperability and dissemination.

The assessment of the proposal is to be completed by the end of September.