The third annual IoF2020 Partners Event which took place in Prague, the Czech Republic at the beginning of March was a resounding success. It was our pleasure to welcome nearly 200 attendees, ranging from our consortium partners to other relevant stakeholders from the agri-food value chain and IoT sector, to the Prague Congress Centre.
Over the course of three days participants engaged in a plethora of activities: contributing to interactive workshops, visiting the use case exhibition and attending the farm visit. During these days participants could take stock of the project’s achievements and progress after more than 2 years.
Wednesday (6/03) was all about creating synergies with the SmartAgriHubs project. The SmartAgriHubs Kick-off Event took place at the beginning of this week in the same venue. It is an EU funded project in the same vein as IoF2020, aiming to ramp-up the digitisation and modernisation of European agriculture. The cooperation between both projects perfectly complements the goal of IoF2020: to catalyse the uptake of IoT technology in the agri-food sector. To this end, participants from both the SmartAgriHubs Kick-off Event and the annual IoF2020 Partners Event attended sessions revolving around the Regional Clusters of SmartAgriHubs, the IoF2020 Trials (arable, dairy, meat, vegetable and fruits) as well as 12 Synergy workshops where they could share common problems, solutions and experiences. Moreover, the day also included a field trip to the nearby Oldrich Polacek dairy farm to showcase the effective implementation of IoT technologies in the field.
On Thursday (7/03) and Friday (8/03) sessions were fully dedicated to the IoF2020 project. They involved workshops on a variety of relevant topics facilitated by our experienced partners. The event provided opportunities for IoF2020 stakeholders- including farmers, technology providers, high-level policy-makers and academics - to catch-up, discuss the potential of 
innovative technologies in agriculture, establish connections and network with all our use cases. All of them were able to demonstrate their activities and results over the past year in a beautiful exhibition area which included several pieces of hardware and tech. In fact, the exhibition included posters for every use case in our project, drones, IoT sensors and other devices developed by our partners. After our Open Call last year, 14 new use cases in previously underrepresented European regions joined our project. Therefore, Thursday started with a warm welcome to and presentations by each one of our newcomers. In total we now have 33 use cases in our consortium. The 19 ones with which we initially started in 2017 could demonstrate their results, innovations and lessons learned at the event, while the 14 new use cases took the opportunity to highlight how they will contribute to the IoF2020 project in the years to come. We are delighted to see our ecosystem grow into new European regions, and it makes us very excited about the next steps and the future ahead for the entire IoF2020 family. The presentation of the new use cases was followed by a Technical, and a Management and Business Track set of workshops allowing participants to hone their skills and exchange knowledge with their peers.
On Friday, participants could attend sessions dedicated to the feedback collection of use cases, workshops on how to transform your use case into an effective showcase, as well as how to define and measure KPIs and business models. The feedback collection was intended for the already established 19 use cases to have the opportunity to re-evaluate their processes, update each other on their activities and gather feedback from all 5 work packages. The workshop on establishing a strong showcase helped use cases develop strategies on how to communicate their results and potential effectively to investors, clients and partners. The sessions on KPIs and business models focused on setting measurable KPIs, establishing timelines for user acceptance testing, mapping partners and identifying challenges and support needed for business model development. In the afternoon project coordinator George Beers wrapped up the annual event with a closing speech before a tasteful lunch in the exhibition area overlooking the marvelous city of Prague.
All the hard work and effort put in by the consortium throughout the past year culminated into this electrifying annual event. It was a pleasure to see so much energy poured into showcasing new technologies and ground-breaking innovations and the desire to cooperate on common issues facing the agri-food sector. We would like to cordially thank all our speakers, use cases, speakers and participants for their cooperation and we are looking forward to welcoming them again at the final event in 2020.
Additional Pictures
Below you can download a selection of impressions from the event.
Download Iof2020 Partners event 2019 Pictures (.zip 42MB)
