Farmers, foresters, advisers, researchers, entrepreneurs, EIP-Agri is looking for participants to attend the EIP-AGRI seminar ‘Data revolution: emerging new business models in the agri-food sector’ organised by the European Commission. It will take place on 22-23 June 2016 in Sofia, Bulgaria. Apply to participate here (Application period extended until Friday 1 April 2016 at 23:59).

Data revolution in the agri-food sector
Development of ICT and sensor based technologies, procedures and software have enormously increased the amount of data collected, and available, in agricultural sectors and through the whole supply chain (from farm to fork). The appearance and adoption of biosensors, nanotechnology, low-cost electronics, the Internet of Things or remote sensing devices, among others, will boost even further the data domain. This scenario offers significant potential for new data driven business models.

Bringing the community together
Several initiatives are already in place, many are quickly developing, and even more are just ideas. The seminar intends to connect all of them bringing the community together and giving the opportunity to people launching or conceiving new data driven businesses to have their ideas discussed, tested and enriched while meeting other members of the community.

Furthermore the seminar will reflect on how agricultural and rural development policy can support the data revolution for an enhanced productivity and sustainability in the wide agri-food sector (diverse sectors, farm types and production systems).

The concrete objectives of the seminar are:

- Identify and discuss existing and potential data driven business models in the agricultural sector, including the whole supply chain
- Identify enabling conditions for these business models
- Bringing people together to further develop data driven business models 

Share your idea!
Experiences and ideas of participants will be at the core of the seminar.  Therefore EIP-Agri kindly requests to applicants to tell them their experience with or idea of a data driven business model in the agri-food sector. It may be already implemented or be just a concept. 

Selection of participants will be made taking into account the applicants’ stories and EIP-Agri looks for a rich variety of examples, covering different sectors, stages in the food-chain, regions, farm sizes, etc. 

Ideas collected will feed the discussion in the seminar and participants will have the chance to present their business models to other colleagues and innovators.

Those participants selected will be informed by mid April. Travel and hotel costs for participants can be covered by the European Commission.

If you are interested to participate please fill in the application form.