The IoT Week 2019, a global annual event, took place between the 17 - 21 June 2019 in the beautiful setting of Jutland's capital: Aarhus, Denmark. The SmartAgriHubs project was present with a double booth throughout the week and hosted a series of presentations on the 'Smart Farming Day'. The week was a roaring success for the project as it saw many people taking interest in our project as a result of our presence, our presentations, and games.
The IoT Week always attracts an engaging audience from across the world. It has been organised by the IoT Forum since 2011 and gathers representatives from industry and academia. In the past, editions took place in Barcelona, Venice, Helsinki, London, Lisbon, Belgrade, Geneve, Bilbao, and now Aarhus joins this illustrious list. This edition saw well over 1300 visitors and participants specialised or interested in the IoT domain, from a variety of backgrounds such as research centers, research projects, SMEs, and policymakers, including the European Commission attend.
Figure 1: Our Booth for the IoT Week!
Throughout the week, the SmartAgriHubs booth attracted many guests. Curious visitors were treated to plenty of interactive activities. Over 100 people participated in a competitive game, pitting colleague against colleague in a test on their knowledge of the languages spoken in the recently launched ‘IampartofSAH’ campaign video. The winners could take home the coveted SmartAgriHubs mugs. Others asked questions about the project and left with our booklets and a determination to learn more about our project online. Moreover, the booth also hosted an instant camera, inviting our visitors to take a picture of themselves and add their photo to our map of Europe, illustrating our interconnectivity and the importance of building bridges to facilitate knowledge-sharing between different countries.
Figure 2: Nicolai Fog Hansen introduces RC Scandinavia to the crowd.
Among the many highlights of the event were the presence of several of our Flagship Innovation Experiments and the presentations delivered by our Project Manager Dr. Ir. George Beerse, and RC Scandinavia lead Nicolai Fog Hansen during the SmartFarmingDay which took place on the 19th of June. George Beers introduced the project to the IoT crowd, and explained how SmartAgriHubs will unleash the digital potential of the European Agri-food sector by building a durable pan-European innovation ecosystem. After this, Nicolai Fog Hansen from SEGES introduced the audience on what SmartAgriHubs means on the ground in Scandinavia by introducing them to the RC's services as well as the local FIEs. As a result of both presentations, attendees were better able to grasp the implications of SmartAgriHubs on a European scale, and on the ground in Scandinavia. FIE 26 Digitising Open Field Vegetables, and FIE 27 Tracking Animal Movements and Health Records took an active part at the booth throughout the event and spoke to bystanders about their research. Additionally, all our FIEs from the North West Europe Regional Cluster were also represented. Overall, a strong turnout for the project.
Figure 3: Two visitors try our our popular game.
The IoTWeek proved to be a successful endeavour for the SmartAgriHubs project. It exposed the project to a large crowd with a predisposed interest in digitisation, including many farmers, and was able to capture a lot of attention by hosting an interactive and fun booth, as well as helping set-up and participate in the round of presentations on the SmartFarmingDay.
If you attended IoTWeek 2019, but were unable to visit our booth and you would like to ask a question, you can get in touch with us through our social media channels and at communications@smartagrihubs.eu.