InnoWise Scale Competition: Agriculture's case study

[Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] hello everyone and welcome to the innova scale agriculture competition today we mark the culmination of the water scarcity program promoted by the european institute of technology who launched it last june my name is patricia carbone and i'm pleased to be your host today i'm communications manager at revolve and it's a communication agency established in brussels barcelona and vienna that fosters cultures of sustainability through two main activities on the one hand we have an editorial line a quarterly magazine exploring innovations in the management of natural ecosystems energy mobility and water and on the other we support international initiatives like this one in-funded projects events campaigns to increase their impact through our expertise in strategic communications thank you everyone for being here today i would like to introduce my colleagues marta and martina also from revolve who are also supporting the organization of this event the topic that brought us today is water water is a precondition of life on earth and essential to all sustainable socioeconomic development food security and healthy ecosystems the growing population the demographic changes massive urbanization trends and climate change among other factors are increasing pressure over the availability of water resources and that's why today we will hear from startups and the innovative solutions that can tackle these challenges so before we begin i would like to just remark a few important points we are live right now on social media you can find us on revolve linkedin channel channel on twitter and you can use the hashtag innoyscale and also on youtube okay please follow us and make sure that you can comment ask any questions that we can address to the speakers during the presentations that we will have today this is a very great opportunity to showcase your ideas your work and so feel free to tweet about taking part of these competitions for you the startups and also as a public to feel free to address any comments or questions that you might have thank you so much so let me give the floor to carmen galindo and elvira domingo from eitfood to give you an overview of what the program is about why we are here today and how we can transform food systems thank you very much patricia good morning everyone and thank you for being here it's monday morning very early so i hope you enjoy uh and so i hope you enjoyed the day and the agenda we have a very interesting speakers coming up coming to to enlighten us in what's going on and what is being done and if you don't mind i'm gonna share my stream a little bit so just for a while to explain you a little bit uh what are we doing in the water scarcity program and specifically in the innovative scale and after that i will give the floor to vida so you have a better overview of what we do at the idea do you want to say good morning nelvia before we go good thank you carmen good morning everyone i can't not think on any better way of starting the monday and then being with us so thank you it's a really inspiring and i hope that you enjoy the day and that you are lucky so we can all transform the agri-food system thank you [Music] give me just one second there we are now you can see right okay so just to to start uh i would like to um as i would like to start with explaining what is the innovation scale activity this is what brought us together here today so the innovation activities are shaped to support innovative entrepreneurs working on water related technologies to foster climate change readiness in in europe and especially in southern europe and it's the final goal of the innovation skill activities is to accelerate the market uptake of these kind of solutions in europe and we are here today to listen the challenges specifically as a patricia said before the challenges on the agricultural sector for that we've put together this a set of entrepreneurs with a network of mentors and trainers as well as potential end users for different sectors with whom they can test their solutions today vaynerwaste scale activity the competition is on water used in agriculture we have after three months of mentoring training and networking opportunities we have to get today eight solution providers that will be participating to solve the specific challenges that san lucas has a spanish company based in valencia working in food production and and vegetable production all around europe and today is represented from a by fernando banyan he will be a enlighten us later today on on what their challenges are a winner of the competition will be granted with 10 and 12 000 a euros in cash prices to engage with end users to enlarge and and scale up their businesses but finally also there will be a special price of 30 000 euros for testing purposes and that will be um the winner of this price will be a able to test their solution with saluka um later next year i would like to give a special thank you to the mentors of a of the companies that are presenting today so uh sarah giordani antonio torino paulinak sorry but it's difficult for me to pronounce your name cara castanes jose antonio rodriguez de la cruz andrea christiani paolo di stephanies and georgio susie i hope thank you for your your contribution to the program and to support these companies during the the last three months this as patricia mentioned before this is the final a competition after two other competitions on water management utilities and larger infrastructures in southern europe that were a that happened were taking place last week so we already have the winners and for for those competitions and i wanted to share with you uh the name so flips and ship engine blue flash and watergate finally just to have a clear view the water scarcity the the invoice scale activities are framed within uh the water scarcity program that have additional activities so in a wise scale are focusing on supporting entrepreneurs but we also have we also collaborate with a group of experts that work together to a create knowledge and support innovation through a bringing together a set of a recommendations challenges and financial opportunities for the companies we also have a they we also work on on building capabilities for the industry through the water through the water academies that will be taking place later this month in early november uh on the 27th the second of november and the third of november and finally we do create content uh to build and to engage with citizens and create awareness on water scarcity and and and how it affects our daily lives behind the scenes who we are um several entities collaborating in this a project because we understand water is water scarcity and tackling water scarcity is a cross-sectorial a challenge so it's eith food as project coordinator but we also collaborate with climate geek with digital and eit manufacturing and with two entities via fool and a athena research center from spain and greece and we do this because one water is a a human right but i will as i've mentioned i would like to a to remark that this is one of the projects we participate and i would like your vita to explain a little bit more of what we do at the 80 foot and and and i cannot see there is so thank you very much thank you very much carmen let me just share my screen as well okay can you see it now no yes okay no no no that's strange let me see but we could see it early so you need to no that's strange clicking sure and then in the window and then accept it yeah yeah but it doesn't uh no like this can you see it yes okay so again thank you very much because it's monday i know that our agendas are full of many interesting things so i really really appreciate that you are all uh with us today um eit food well first i will go into eit um as you know eit is built by several communities each of them um addressing different societal challenges which means actually that there are lots of things to improve in our society um this is one of them the water scarcity program in which several kicks are or in a community of innovation are collaborating to actually put some solutions and develop some innovative products and services and bring them into market so that we can become one of the leading innovation um regions in the in the world together with the us or japan instead of being at the tail of it as it has happened in the past few years how do we do that we do train entrepreneurs we support and power up startups and scale ups and sms as well and as i was saying we develop innovative products and services and we make sure that they bring they reach the market and then and they are not uh behind in the in the research side or the scientific part of them at eit food as you can imagine we have some specific challenges among them societal and we have to remember that in 2050 we will be more than 10 billion people on the planet that we need to feed and that if we keep doing what we are doing at the moment we will not succeed on that on the other hand our nutritional habits are completely distorted we have two billion people um overweight while 800 million people go um hungry to bed every day so again these are things that we need to address on the agri-food system but also environmental i don't have to tell you on the water scarcity sector uh that the agriculture and the food production is one of the um things that consume a lot of water resources and the management and a good efficiency on the management of water is absolutely key essential crucial to to do things better we also uh uh are responsible for the production of a high percentage of greenhouses emissions and we are throwing away um 30 percent of the fo of the food that we produce so this together with the low ratio of success of the startups across europe but also with the few number of startups on the agri-food sector are making us to put in place a lot of different activities programs and um initiatives that are trying to tackle to address these uh these challenges or even problems that i would say in some cases okay oops this is going too fast now [Music] okay now so as i was saying at the beginning what is our mission our vision um transforming fully the agri-food system and make sure that we can access and enjoy sustainable food that is safe that is healthier and which is more important in which we can trust and that it comes from far to fork directly to us the consumers what is our role then putting all the players the relevant ones um together so that we can address all these challenges how are we doing that we have established five offices across europe our headquarters are based in belgium but we also have two offices here in spain one in poland one in germany and another one in the uk together with this we work with 17 organizations across central eastern and southern europe which help us to not only spread the message but also to engage participants in our communities and to develop relevant activities and relevant programs uh from eit food and also other communities so as i was saying we are putting together all the partners we are establishing the links between them that are needed to develop new products and services and for this what do we need we have industrial partners we have research centers um okay we have research centers and we also have startups startups are really really important for us we do know that the innovation falls uh behind them and we have created an association which is called rising for the stars that i hope that some of the startups that are joining us today uh join in the future um through this association you can play together with other partners at eit food research which research partners universities industry partners and make sure that your products your services reach the market in a successful way so now that we have all the players the strategic ones and together we have established um several objectives six which are as i was saying addressing consumer trust building a consumer-centric uh food system educating uh but also catalyzing entrepreneurship that is really really low uh on the agri-food sector um creating a consumer value foods and enhancing sustainability and where are we doing those these six objectives across six um focus areas that we have defined which are alternative proteins sustainable agriculture sustainable aquaculture as well and i'm not forgetting kathleen katlin is also part of the sustainable agricultural activities targeted nutrition digital traceability and circular fault systems all the activities we do are focused to address these these challenges or addressing new solutions into these challenges of course we are in the food system and we need to take into account the consumer which is absolutely uh important because they address not only the current demands but also the future ones and uh of course digital transformation on the agri-food system is transversal and it's involved in all the activities and that we are currently doing also the agri-food sector has been very traditional um it's especially slow in incorporating new technology and uh of course digital transformation is really uh something embedded in in every activity just to give you a small um overview of some of the activities that we are doing we have uh four areas entrepreneurship education innovation and public engagement as i was saying consumer is um is the center of all of our activities but we have specific activities for uh each of these areas and um every entrepreneurship activity has parts of innovation all the innovation activities we do contain bits of education and in education and all of them education innovation entrepreneurship they all uh have part of outreach communication and public engagement so that we can make sure that everything we do reaches the consumers as well you have seen that in the in the water scarcity program um so here these are a few names for uh the programs that we are leading but uh there are plenty of others that i will not i don't have unfortunately the time to go in deep today together with these activities as you know we have a big focus on startups and we are doing programs so that we make sure that we support them that we are together with the startups from the beginning to when they are a big um company uh full constituted uh sme so we have uh um activities for those that only have an idea like the challenge lab the jump starter or team up where we put together entrepreneurs researchers with people that have more the business development side or mindset we also have specific activities for women entrepreneurs um and we also have tesla program for example in which we put together farmers with entrepreneurs so they both can benefit of the new solutions we also have some flagship programs like seed bed fan or rising food stars which are our incubator accelerator and the association for startups that i was mentioning before the water scarcity program i don't have to say about it and with this i will not go more in deep into the activities we do just so you know that in each of the countries across europe we have specific programs that you can find opportunities for each of them in our website that i'm always here if you uh have any question about our programs about how you can get engaged or how you can participate in our activities please just drop me an email and i will be happy to to support you and that's all join us in transforming the agri-food system and wishing you all the luck for today and for the success of your businesses thank you thank you so much carmen and elvira it's always great to hear and what a eight foot is does is happening the areas that you are covering and understand how how the community is actually growing so we have an exciting agenda for you today so thank you and we would like to let's uh to continue with the next session and we will have an interview with fernando varion a production director at san luca and it's the problem holder of the innovate scale agriculture competition so without more hesitation i would like to move into the next session hello fernando how are you good morning patricia i'm doing pretty good what about you very good as an introduction i i would like to introduce you and san lucar san lucas is an international company that's been based in spain producing and supplying fruits and vegetables all around the world and fernando is the problem holder of the competition and he has extensive experience in operations strategy and finance in agribusiness which is very inspiring for the startups and well today i would like to ask you a few questions to understand a bit more how you are operating and to understand the success of the the organization so let's start with san lucar tell us a little bit more on how is san luca tackling water scarcity since it's the the topic of today well um we have we have many ways that we are with which we are tackling water scarcity water is very much important for us because it's a that's a number one parameter for for production we are developing different solutions in in our different orchards in order let's say to be more efficient in water consumption um let's say for example we are using uh hardware solutions we are using sensors in the plantations in order to let's say to know what is the percentage of humidity uh that the plants have available and with these we are able of let's say plantify better irrigation and let's say reduce the water the water consumption um apart from this we are also for example using water from rainfall in in our in our archers in indonesia and also we are using we are reusing the water from from the drainage of of the irrigation which allow us to let's say to make the most out of the the water that we consume and well apart from these the reductions we are also working a lot on agronomical agronomical management we are working on vegetable covers we're working on mulching in order let's say to preserve the water on the ground in order to avoid the water to evaporate without being consumed by the plants so these are some of the actions that we are doing in order to be more efficient in you know water consumption thank you and do you have any more precise strategy for the efficient water management we're working in we're working in in in many different lines uh from one side we are working on on research and development many times let's say there is no uh specific solutions or some of the of the challenges that we have um so let's say we're collaborating with different startups like this is the case for for in a wise scale program let's say in order to develop the technology uh but on the other side we are working a lot with existing technology with sensor technology and let's say we satellite imagery in order to understand how we can better manage the the water the water the water used fantastic i remember you you mentioned and that you are actually trying to reduce co2 with some of the strategies maybe in tunis right you have some examples of that can you tell us a bit more about some of these examples that are contributing towards the kind of you know reducing emissions and trying to be more climate smart to contribute to a climate smart agriculture yeah yes well in term in terms of this uh co2 we can say that we have the the less the less let's say the cleanest the cleanest uh orchard uh the keenest tomato production orchard we we are using let's say uh hot water from the ground in order to heat our greenhouses in indonesia and this makes us to have the lowest uh carbon footprint in the market which is which is amazing but uh in terms of uh let's say climate smart agriculture as i was telling you we are we're investing a lot in in research and development not only for for water but also for energy use and for what other inputs use um we are we are let's say investing a lot developing technologies and let's say using the the existing technologies that are in the market [Music] good so i would like to understand how san luca actually sits sees water management the origin in the next 10 years how do you think that food systems are going to be transformed well if you see um in this in this um you know wise uh escape program we could see a very interesting presentation at the beginning where we could see the impact of climate change in europe and most specifically in the mediterranean area and you can see that uh all mediterranean countries together with greece italy uh spain and and other countries we are going to suffer and we are suffering more than others of these um let's say climate uncertainty so let's say if we project ourselves in in 10 years what we know is that we have to be ready for these changes that are already coming we have to be resilient we have to let's say to know that these changes are coming are already here and that we have to be let's say early to to provide responses and to produce in the same way or or better than we are doing that we are doing today what we want with uh programs like like this of innovation scale and other programs as well that we are developing is to spread the solutions the spread of solutions that we develop with our partners uh let's say all around our orchards in in spain but also abroad and we want to share this knowledge with let's say our fellow growers in in the murcia region murphy or region is especially touched by this and let's say this knowledge is especially important for them so let's say in few words we want to spread these these results of of research and development through that orators in order to be much more sustainable in our water management thank you and do you think that we are still facing a technological gap to be able to tackle water scarcity or other factors are influencing the the so what i think is that that is already i mean we have gone a long way if you compare ourselves with 10 years ago we have gone a long way and we are using already a lot of technologies that were not used 10 years ago for example ndvi technologies satellite imagery for example sensors are widely used almost all over our plantations but let's say other growers are using them and in general growers are much more open to technology to use technology to let's say in a daily basis in order to provide better better responses to to their daily days to their daily um and work however still there are let's say as you are saying technological gaps um i can say for example to prevent the leakages in the irrigation systems still there we have we have let's say an important uh work to be done and also we have to be more precise on let's say on the water that we give to each plant we have to be able in the in the neat brand to provide each plant what it needs not more not less in order let's say to be more efficient in order to to spend less water and in order to develop the potential of the plus of the plants at its best so in this regard um i think still there is a gap i think still we have to invest for this research and development and let's say we have to inform consumers that let's say in order to tackle these challenges of the future we growers we are investing in doing better the things and yeah and and it is important than them to know you know that we are doing these advancements so yes there has been lots of things that have been done yes we have gone a long way but still yeah there is a lot of challenges there is a lot of work to be done and that is what excites us and that what that motivates us to to keep on working and to do lots of uh uh ordinary and crazy things so yeah thank you fernando i think this has enabled us to set the scene a little bit more to give an overview of what it's happening and how san luca is addressing this this um so thank you so much i don't want to to go more in deep because we have a long session today with the startups providing some of the solutions that will be addressing these challenges that we described today here and it's good to hear that you are investing so much time effort and and development in the sustainability sustainable and innovation unit at san lucar i think this will be something to be replicated across all business models uh these days and not only to look at the environmental kind of side of things but also to the entrepreneurship one and also to the social one which i know that you are also tackling not trying to cover the more holistic perspective so we can advance more sustainable towards that so thank you fernando it's it's such an honor to be here such a honor to have to to have been able to work with the ite team and with a revolve team great professionals and an incredible opportunity to work and to collaborate with the eight different technology providers the eight different startups with whom we have been able to have lots of meetings to discuss a lot about the challenges and let's say to develop a lot of long-term relationships for yeah to to tackle these challenges so thanks a lot and yeah very very uh very much willing to to discover today's agenda thank you we will see you again later on at the awards ceremony and thank you fernando we will continue with luciano mateos his researcher at the institute of sustainable agriculture at cesic hello luthiano how are you good morning good morning thank you it's a pleasure to have you here and let's continue with your keynote presentation on innovations in the agri-food sector to cope with water scarcity um just to give an introduction to luciano his main topics of expertise are around irrigation engineering and hydrology as well as management and conservation of water and soil so we will be going more into this direction now so take the floor luciano when you want thank you i'm going am i sharing my screen now okay good morning thank you for the invitation to this exciting event innovate 2021 my talk will deal with these two key concepts innovation and coping with water scarcity going directly to to the subject there are two main strategies for coping with water scarcity one is reducing demand and the other is increasing supply first we can reduce demand by reducing production but that's something that we don't want i mean we are too many people in the world we have to feed a growing population so we cannot afford a reduction in in production we might be interested in maybe moving production from areas where water scarcity is acute to areas where there's still availability of water and that is happening in mediterranean countries we can also change habits we can encourage people to consume products that are less water eager or at least to consume products that have been produced sustainably and for this purpose the label and certification of products in the market guaranteeing that they have produced in a sustainable way has been an innovation a successful innovation that is of course still under development third we can reduce demand by increasing efficiency and productivity and i guess this is what we are going to listen today a smart irrigation is one of the innovation processes and that has been already introduced and i am sure in the competition we will listen about more solutions related to smart irrigation i will talk a little bit about a a specific experience on smart irrigation to describe a specific innovation process but that will come next because first i want to go quickly through the second strategy to cope with water scarcity which is increasing supply the conventional ways of increasing supply were building dams transferring water from basin to basin virtual water tray socially and environmentally this means to increase a water supply are not relevant anymore or are not acceptable anymore at least in the intensity that were before so now we are focusing and innovation is focusing on water treatment in the context of the circular economy recycling and desalinizing water and this is a true increase in the water supply water markets are a singular way of redistributing water and guaranteeing the the supply i think i believe this is a a field open to innovation and with many ideas to be developed or to create finally i want to mention nature based solutions this is something that the european commission is promoting and it defines it as solutions that are inspired and supported by nature which are cost effective simultaneously provide environmental social and economic benefits and help build resilience this kind of solutions require intensive knowledge and innovation and if i have time at the end of my presentation i will give an example of nature-based solution to cope with water scarcity but let's start with increasing efficiency and productivity and let's do that through the difference case of water management starting at the basing scale what you see on the screen is just a screenshot of the application that the wallace very basing authority has developed for water monitoring as information system and it is used for water accounting which is the basic tool for water planning and hopefully one day this will be also a supervisory control and automation system for water management at the basing scale but i believe still intensive knowledge and innovation has to be developed in order to get to that to that point so let me go to the next scale which is the irrigation district scale typically managed by water user associations and here we we can talk about the modernization process the modernization causal loop some years ago the goal was increasing the water service the water delivery service by enhancing the flexibility and the reliability of the collective networks the idea was to increase efficiency but also the irrigation schedules that allow adequate water application to the crops at the right time in the right quantity so the final result of all this process should be higher productivity land productivity and water productivity so this was the goal and this is what we call mission oriented innovation and we can say that we were really successful now the water issues associations are managed or they manage their irrigation districts using modern escada that allow on demand irrigation highly efficient optimize irrigation responding to the needs of the farmers and to the needs of the of the crops and more and more they are introducing in their daily tasks information coming from sensors from satellites information that is used to enhance enhance the management and the quality of the service that they provide so this mission oriented innovation was what i call the first wave in the modernization process but a second wave of radical innovation is coming with the introduction of solar pumping a solution to the increase of the energy cost consequence of the first modernization and this is what we call anticipatory innovation at the farmers scale we see irrigation in the farmers five year generation assessed of ground or airborne sensors detecting water needs in the soil and plants and actually actuating valves automatically that in turn control pumping at the water supply the system includes all the ingredients like internet offence information and communication technology artificial intelligence and the result should be a more efficient and productive farming so this is what i call enhancement oriented innovation however the innovation process can be very different in the different situations and even unexpected i am going to give a narrative of my own experience in the innovation process related to variable rate irrigation this is site specific irrigation precision site specific irrigation for a center pivot systems the manufacturers of these systems develop the hardware and the software that it that it is needed for this variable rate application and consultants consultancy companies develop practical applications of emerging technology for soil sensoring and soil mapping so with these two innovations a converging the variable rate irrigation for site specific precision application of water was a reality that became a possibility and we could see fancy brochures with a lot of colors promoting the the technology if we look with detail of this process and we can use the theory of diffusion of innovations developed by by roger years ago we know about the innovators enthusiastic farmers wishing to adopt anything that comes new this is followed by the early adopters who look at those innovators and find that there are things that they like however before the innovation reaches the early majority and that should be the the goal the objective there is typically what we call a chasm the early majority watches with more proven eyes what the early adopters did and they want to make sure that the innovation is actually benefiting and improving what they have been doing so far so this chasm which comes too often um because the gap between the actual capacities of the new technology and the user's expectation is something that we observe and we can describe using what we call the gardener's hype cycle visibility in this case of variable rate irrigation technology went very high after the promotion of the manufacturers and the consultants that were giving this service and it reached what we call the peak of inflated expectations but at that time researchers and even developers in the manufacturing companies were in a condition of a disillusionment they were saying they were even saying that they were developing solutions looking for a problem rather than solutions to a problem this is actually quite common in our sector and we should watch and be careful to avoid these type of situations because they can be the cause of unsuccess of innovations that in different conditions should be successful or will have room for success so at that time we were on what we call the throat of disillusionment in the garnet's high cycle however we researchers with a group of researchers and professors from the university of nebraska where this technology came up started to develop knowledge knowledge about soil water holding capacity and mainly about the variability of the soil water holding capacity this variability is what actually can justify the technology of variable rate irrigation so we made use of publicly available information and what you see here is a map of the water holding capacity in the soils of nebraska and we started to climb up the slope of enlightenment in the garnet cycle just by understanding in which conditions variable rate indicated application was an appropriate technology for the objective of improving irrigation efficiency and productivity so we went a little bit further and we overlapped in a google application those maps about soil water holding capacity with the geographic information system of the 60 000 million of center pivots that are in the state and you can see in this screenshot of the variable rate irrigation pumping reduction application so each farmer could look at his center pivot at the soil variability in the center people and assess the water saving that could be achieved by introducing this new technology the application also allow the farmer to enter the cost of pumping in his farm do and it does an economical analysis of the interest of the investment from the economical point of view so now farmers have a tool that help them to decide whether to introduce variable rate irrigation in their farm so we can say that we have reached the plateau of productivity of this particular innovation site specific variable rate irrigation for center pivots and this is just an example of the process of innovation where first the horse was running faster than the rider and that was the reason for the chasm between the early adopters and the early majority again my message is that we have the responsibility of watching these processes to avoid this type of situation that can be the cause of unsuccess or failure we have talked about a specific a particular innovation process that was my experience and while i was talking about the different solutions to cope with water scarcity the different innovations i was using the term of mission oriented innovation enhancement oriented innovation anticipatory innovation and now i am introducing also adaptive innovation i think it is important we distinguish between the different type of innovations the the first one mission oriented innovation means innovating for doing extinct sorry um innovating to achieve an explicit goal or outcome that was the innovation associated to the modernization of the collective irrigation systems in in spain and other countries in europe i have talked about enhancement oriented innovation when i was talking about a smart irrigation there the goal is doing existing things better when i mention the introduction of solar pumping as a response to the increase of energy cost in the modernized irrigation district i use the term anticipatory innovation which means that in those cases cases we are exploring and engaging with emerging issues energy consumption that might shape future priorities and future commitments that was i insist the case for solar pumping all that is and finally i want to introduce another reflection about adaptive innovation and this is important when we move to developing countries and we try to export the innovations that we have developed in our own conditions and without thinking about the the new context it is there where the bottom up and participatory research and co-creation has more sense and we should be careful about that so going back to our list of means to cope with water scarcity under the strategies of reducing demand and water supply let me talk a little bit and quickly about a nature-based solution to increase supply that we are studying researching today and that has created a lot of interest in water planners and basic authorities i am talking about an ancestral way of recharging shallow aquifers in mountainous areas this water has different functions maybe the main one is irrigation downstream in the lower part of the of the watershed and that is what you see on the right while on the left you see the carreo channels that are used to divert the water from the streams from the ravines during the snow melting period in the mountains and what you see is in sierra nevada that water is diverted and distributed to recharge shallow aquifers that help to regulate the water in the river and to extend the availability of water during the summer so this is a an annual regulation that can substitute the dams that conventionally have been used for that purpose the idea here is that the water diverted from the ravines during the melting period is spread over an area where where it infiltrates easily so it can move as ground water flux and eventually emerge in springs or downstream in the river and for that purpose this is the ancestral practice of spreading the water as you can see in this picture where at the bottom you can see areas of greenhouses near the mediterranean coast in south eastern spain so this is an example of integrated water resources management it is non-intrusive and it helps for water supply regulation it has several ecosystem services related to biodiversity and carbon fixation so from ancestral experience to intensive knowledge and innovation needs there is a long way and this is therefore another field where we should encourage innovation and the implication of startups and research and development institutions thank you very much for your attention and i will be open for questions and comments today but also through the email that you have on the screen thank you very much thank you so much luciano this was a fantastic and insightful presentation with clear examples and i hope that this has set the ground and i look forward to hear now about the solutions that can address water scarcity from a holistic perspective to capture all the different aspects of the challenges faced today thank you luciano once again if there's any questions coming from youtube comments linkedin chat function or twitter with the hashtag innova scale please others them so we can ask luciano right now or we can take them at the end of the decision or through email as he just mentioned okay if there's no comments or questions we will jump into the innovators speaking i would like to introduce the first set of startups that will be presenting their solutions and it will be followed by a short q a with the jury members after the first presentations we will have a short break of 10 minutes and then we will continue with an exciting conversation on challenges and opportunities around investments in the water and agri-food sector with high-level speakers such as kaitano susanet kaitanes sorry my maria echevarri andrew worker and david smith so please hold with us during the whole session today because we have a very exciting agenda but let's now kick off with the first video from tatiana rodriguez that will be presenting a second floor sure the floor is yours to play the video now good morning my name is tatiana rodriguez and with this the within this very short time i will try to convey the main ideas of our project [Music] we are focusing on agriculture of course and especially in this project with the agricultural productions of fruit trees and vegetables and all the crops we are treating with our planets in spain we are responding to a lot of challenges but it's all about water scarcity and the problems are flowing from it uh the water management in musia is on the spotlight the water costs the water is very expensive and very difficult to reach uh it's a really uh we have a potential risk for drought years and we have the uncertainty for the water transfers and moreover we have the salinity which is a very negative factor for the soils but we are really really uh proud and really happy of the results we are reaching uh with the more than 200 projects worldwide please take an eye on the savings which are the key factor for us we closely collaborate with our clients out with our partners making available for them all the experience all the expertise and all the know how i'm making available as well the properties of the panels which are the key benefits of our product and which are really really amazing please the top three figures put an eye on this saving irrigation up to 50 percent save on need for nutrients up to 30 percent reduction of salinity up to 40 percent and moreover we have additional advantages related to the soil to the growing condition to the humus and etc some key data again please put an eye on the savings and on the proof that the clients are really happy because more than 70 percent are coming back to us we are certified with official certification bodies and of course we are really committed to the green environment to the green future uh market attraction of course we have it everybody sees on desperate need of solutions because of the water scarcity of the planet and we want to go towards new research beyond data recording and analytics we want to change the conditions the competitors are not doing so in the same way they use chemical components non-biodegradable waste and plastic we don't here you are some of our competitors here you are oco markets and the time frame we have forcing which is really really important for us at the beginning b2b sector and at the end and consumer and which is the market potential both in spain and internationally all the potential we have millions of batteries available for applying the panels and their benefits and of course we have a lot of risk but we have source forcing a lot of solutions for them some key data about or business model and revenue streams uh the pricing strategy and of course the scala plans which are really important and we are very happy this year we have already reached the targets we can help salukat to tackle the problem with the international experience with the business philosophy of partnership and giving a unique response with one simple and green application all in one solution this is our team i'm very proud to have to to belong to and we are going towards the new uh direction to towards the same direction for changing the conditions using this is the main idea i want you to retain thank you for your attention and i wish you all the best of luck good morning everyone good morning good morning good morning i hope you are well good morning enjoy the video and the presentation thank you so i i think i can start uh asking questions thanks a lot for your exam presentation and i was also checking the website of the solution which first aim was to fight erosion that is a very interesting application as well i'm uh i'm not understood very well the way you are fighting salinity in coastal areas because the way of attention is about soil salinity and that 40 that you presented is very very ambitious so uh are you able to tell us in case of sea water infiltration how this will enhance the challenge of salinity so i'm interested about salinity uh objective that you are there are very much of interest in google uh yes thank you for the question mr fatone uh indeed the salinity is one of the main challenges because in indeed in south europe and coastal areas we have a lot of of it um the the solution for the salinity is going through uh between 25 and 40 and this is the maximum and it depends of course on the tide if it's very close to the coast the reduction of the salinity is lower if it's very uh far away from the coast is better the panel is retaining water and the nutrients keep inside so the nutrients it's were are helping the cell the salt to be uh as much you know what i mean yeah i was starting with solution yeah the mechanism was not very clear but well you replied it's very technical because it's a question of um the components of the panel i i'm not an engineer but yeah you know so but the salinity is treated by the nutrients that there are inside the panels already thank you very much you're welcome good morning thank you for your presentation tatiana thank you i would like to know if it's possible to plan your system in a farm with the with the fruit crops established when the crop have around 5 years 10 years is it possible to incorporate this system yes it's it's completely useful and it's completely possible to do it but the system and the procedure to to put the panels is different for example we have many examples in hang with olive trees and then the only old olive trees that there are already planted long years ago and then the system for putting the the panels is different because of course we are not able to take away the tree because of the roots and everything so we have to crush the panel and we have to insert them and the procedure the procedure is different we put them in the first layer of the soil and then we cover wind substrate as well but we combine cutting pieces panel plus a crushed panel you know in order not to move the olive the olive tree the whole tree very much are different depending on trees or depending on plants uh the procedure for for putting the panels on okay thank you so much you're welcome okay thank you tabiana for your video uh have a question um why why do you think 30 of your clients do not come back because you said 70 are coming back why the 30 percent do not come back and um what are your plans to increase the number of the clients coming back to you um well given that the their return the return of the investment depends on the on the type of plantation for example for plants and vegetables in one half one and a half years or two years that the investment is returned and for trees it takes a little longer three years more or less but uh we think that the clients rely on the price maybe the clients not coming black are relying on the price so uh what we try to do is to to improve our price or pricing strategy in order the clients to to be able to come back uh to us and to return the investment uh in a short way you know in a short time of course thank you you're welcome thank you so much to everyone thank you tatiana and the members of the jury okay so let's give the floor to the next startup will be represented by mercedes and will be visual nazareth thank you hello i am mercedes founder of visual acronyms engineer and third generation of farmers visual is an innovative agritech company founded in 2014 in valencia and our mission is to create climate smart technological solutions for the agri-food sector seeking economic environmental and social sustainability in the value chain we are endeavor entrepreneurs and i would like to highlight that we are officially recognized as an innovative company by the ministry of science and innovation and that through our foundation generation agreed meeting we launched our social action initiatives we have an all-in-one platform to give real-time field insights and give support to growers with precision agricultural practice in seven years more than 400 companies trust us and four million hectares are nuts the garden san luca problem we have studied their needs and the environment the farms of santa maria are influenced by the climate change the water represents five percent of the operational cost is often saline and water scarcity makes cells difficult to lead our solution is an outstanding integration of unfarmed information systems these were sensors to know in real time the weather and soil conditions and water only when necessary visual satellites including the advice of earth specialists and visual farm management that integrates data from crop operations all in one platform hands-on and intuitive applications will be used with multi-device access to have good user experience in the fields the estimated impact represents a saving of 20 percent in water consumption and a reduction of 25 tons of co2 per hectare in one year this solution is based in our experience with leading fruit companies we like to listen and learn so we develop efficient solutions for precision agriculture we have a strong presence in the agricultural sector we work with professional farmers cops wineries and service providers mainly and other segments like protected varieties of flowers visual has a strong intellectual property policy registered as straight secret or industrial design and in addition our entire team works under confidentiality agreements our company is aligned with a european green deal and we work to anticipate their compliance which is a competitive advantage for our customers this is why visual optimize and reduce the use of farm inputs our mission is to reduce in 10 years the consumption of water and emissions by 40 in a roadmap we are introducing drought service and precision irrigation advice especially in drug conditions in collaboration with relevant institutions like polytechnic university of valencia or and this is happening in a growing market that in futures will reach more than 12 billion and in which we have been recognized among the best agritech startups in europe we have a sas business model with a direct sales channel in-house and a commercial partner agreement with telefonica since 2015. our solutions are deployed in three ways with a proof of concept with operational products already available that you can check in the website or with projects designed to meet particular needs we work with agile methodologies to make projects more efficient we are a team of 40 passionate people with expertise in agriculture technology and data analysis with references from customers in eight countries with growth based on sales a profit making company with realistic gross expectations our customers really appreciate us coming out with deep industry knowledge with visual you will be better and more sustainable let's work together thank you hello hello thank you hello good morning we can keep the same order of questions thanks a lot for your presentation very clear and well i was wondering uh what is the specific decisions that you are supporting in the case of salukar because this was not clear to me so if you can specify in the specific case specific challenges of san lucas what you're going to support as priority as priority we will propose in this solution to install um sensors soil and climate sensors these this sensors will will take the the data about when is necessary to irrigate and through the information of the sensors plus the information of the satellites and the information all the information in the fire management software you have an only and all-in-one platform where san luca could know the the the best education moment and the best policy for for the farm management you know is an integration but um is in our opinion is the best solution uh trying to connect one connecting sensors satellite imaginary and the fire management systems thank you okay uh i have a question about the crop where you test in your your system if you are implement this system only to treat trees or vegetable or which type of crop you you you can use this this technology the second question is when you speak about irrigation strategy in drought is about using efficient use of water or or is about more regulated deficit irrigation or other type of strategy where you apply less water that the crop is demanded thank you teresa well in order to answer the question about crops we have been test in our solution for many many years not only in fruits but as well in different crops actually we work with with citrus and we are from valencia and it's a one of our main crops citrus olives nuts and dried and dry fruits there are a different crops that we are working with and we have more than 400 customers with more than 70 different crops and our sensors have been tested during during not only our sensors 10 different sensor we have been testing for two years and after these two years we we select we choose one of the the sensors that we thought that that were stronger a more um the more efficient sensors for our solutions and um in in 70 conditions it's not only about less water because in most of the of the moments it's not less water is the the water when you need you know because you have to in most of the occasions you have to apply more water to a to reach the the salts so um our sensors with the with the information that that the sensors give us they could help the salukar to know when uh to apply more water in order to reach the shots you know it's not only about less less water we are not talking about reducing water we are talking about reducing water plus reducing salt salt problems okay thank you thank you hello um i have a question how much does it cost to digitize a hectare of agricultural land in average um and is there a monthly fee for the applications and the service for the farmers yeah we have a assassin's creed service model and in the case of the platform have an average of um 2000 per year uh it's not the independence of um of the hectares a number of hectares for us it's not it's not important the the fee is different for the number of users is not for the number of hectares you know and with the irrigation sensors or the reducer management they the model is like a hardware as a service it's a we think that it's an innovative way to to to propose the management of the irrigation thank you thank you thank you so much mercedes and everyone so let's continue with our next startup from synaphys hi i'm ari kambouris the co-founder of sanathis and i'm here today to present to you our solution to eit's water scarcity challenge for san luca synapse is a company that provides solutions to real world problems in agriculture we've got over 400 solutions deployed on 100 farms in france uh in all types of crops san lucari's problem statement is pretty simple there's not enough water and it's too expensive uh they're actually using about 400 000 cubic meters per year and it's costing 110 000 euros per year and that doesn't include the maintenance of the irrigation system what we're proposing is a plot-based systemic approach to regenerative agriculture so we're going to measure and monitor using sensors and then use an agro ecological approach to farming to reduce the water consumption the measuring monitor part is senescent smart aggregate uh collected uh connected sensors in the field that transmit the data on a network and then are consultable on the web the advantage of our system is we're actually measuring the microclimate that is in the field in the trees and in the plants so air temperature and humidity being measured in the plant canopy the total temperature and humidity at the root structure and the leafy meditation in the foliage and our competitive advantage is exactly that we're measuring the microclimate in the field in the plant so it's a direct measurement a temperature and humidity of the soil air leaves in the micro climate of the plant and in the orchard there's no data interpolation and we can measure as often as we want this is the client interface just a demonstration of the difference between indicators for do and rainy episodes the advantage of the system had proven over the last four years optimization of water resources a reduction in pesticides better flora and biodiversity and increase in soil fertility and by imagining the budget constraints it's a low-cost solution that we know that it works we're combining it with an agroecology approach with uh convert vegetable service uh with the idea of increasing soil fertility so the techniques may include permanent ground cover no plowing or tilling the idea of producing biodiversity the goal here is to create an auto regenerating ecosystem that we in permanent equilibrium the gains and loss are measurable so uh over an increase in organic material uh increasing yield for wheat and corn um for apples and kiwis we had two to three days of bumblebee pollinator work in addition uh which represents 20 to 25 of uh increase in activity during the pollination period uh in the vineyards we're down 25 percent in the use of pesticides and fetal treatments and in lettuce producers were in a reduction of 20 percent of water consumption we would expect these impacts to be this similar to what we expected san lucar an increase in soil fraternity with reduced water consumption better knowledge of the orchard and tree microclimates increase in biodiversity and reduction of carbon impact and reduced cost and of course the ability to scale up at other sanitarium plantations in terms of ecosystem services economical impacts we've got better water attention uh up to 30 000 um cubic meters per year that stays in the soil uh reduced water consumption of the 75 percent and reduce carbon footprints on both the daily desalinization and the pumps uh 22 tons and 160 tons per year from the reduction in usage we would also recommend a risk assessment for stanley power because the air temperature over the last few years has been um average on average going up the annual precipitation has been going down the tau sugar aqua cannot provide uh actually provide the quantities of water that were thought to be available and the groundwater scarcity is increasing because the well replenishment rates are lower due to the lower rainfall uh in terms of the market for payment ecosystem services market it's uh growing across the board as is the market for global agricultural sensors uh sanati's history we started in 2016 and we're moving forward as as well uh you'll be working with uh myself and jerome corgi for the agro ecology part with 10 years of services professional and finally let's go let's go down to mercia let's go down and see what's happening and let's uh give you a road map for how to reduce your water thanks for paying attention thanks a lot that's excellent systemic approach to innovate the system in agriculture so i have a quick question that is about well the sensors that are installing are quite different as you mentioned but the operational maintenance of the sensors will be up to the farmers what is the what kind of service model you are planning for those kind of sensors the sensors that we have um are actually uh extremely reliable and we have never had an electronic failure in our sensors and the maintenance consists of changing the battery so i think most of the farmers are able to change a battery thank you okay good morning for your presentation uh i only have a question because i don't know if i understand really the system your system offer some kind of data analysis or recommendation of the objective is uh record data displays this data um to be analyzes by the technician of the firm no we don't it is not a decision uh making software so what we found from our experience is that the farmers and technicians and agronomes do make the correlation between what is happening on the screen and what is happening in the in the field so we actually uh we we we display a maximum of six data points and these six data points are used by different um cultures or in different crops uh for different ends for example in olive trees they use the soil temperature to detect the emergence of the pupae that are going to become the flies that attack the olives and in the vineyards for example uh and also in the orchards they use the air temperature sorry the air humidity and the leaf humidity to identify the optimal moment to apply their treatments and have a better adhesion on the leaf so we don't we don't tell them when to apply it's the the results of using the system and the the value added is this correlation between what they see on the screen and what's happening in the field okay thank you hello ari i have a question what are you using as a ground cover and it's the same for every country crop altitude and etc no it's not in fact the ground cover it would depend uh one of our first actions would be to uh do a survey to to go down to mercia and do a survey because what you're gonna use is ground cover depends a great deal on what the actual soil composition is at the moment and um what the what types of uh environment that you're already dealing with so some place like mercia which is probably hotter and drier would not be the same type of ground cover that we would use in the champaign region in the north of france the idea is to to apply the correct plant that is going to help develop that compost and that mulch that's going to keep the humidity into the ground thank you thank you all for your attention thank you ali and thank you jerry this is fantastic and i would like to call in aspa from wings from ict solutions to present the video hello this is joanna de copulo i work for wing size d solutions and i'm here to present artemis water which is a smart irrigation and water management solution tailored for the sand looker use case so the sun looker challenges has identified is first that the irrigation costs pose a competitive disadvantage to the company there is a high risk of drought gears which is going to cause many problems to the water supply quality of water supply is often silent and all these problems have significant negative effects in production so the artemis water solution first created division into virtual irrigation zones with customized scheduling according to the types of irrigation systems that san lucas uses an automation watering schedule adapting to the water schedule which takes into account weather and season remote operation inspection and leak detection with alerts water stress monitoring forecasting with real-time monitoring and predictions of water consumption and real-time water quality parameters monitoring in order to safeguard the salinity levels overall artemis water offers integration with diverse irrigation devices and sensors remote management of irrigation network consumption monitoring with user-defined time intervals detection and early warning of incidents such as leakages integration with billing systems for farmers to keep track of the costs and prediction of water demand here is the artemis water dashboard the devices can be identified in the map the groups of devices here can be handled individually through the dashboard there are here live messages regarding any irrigation alerts any scheduling any maintenance issues here we can see in diagrams the different parameters monitored in the field they're garmin to real time and you can see predictions as well here here is the consumption real time monitored so the artemis water uh comes with hardware which is the wing smart gateway you can actually implement this into the field and it retrieves data from the local sensors and devices and transmits them to the clouds the ardennes water dashboard so regarding the market validation we have identified that 20 to 40 of the europe's water is being wasted mainly to leakages physical visits at the water supply meters is closely often open up explicit most farms currently decide that the irrigation schedule based on everyday experience and forecasts indicate that temperature is going to significantly rise and there is going to be a decrease in rainfall until 2050. so the market size right now in water control and monitoring solutions is coming from 22.8 billion and uh in 2017 to 30.1 billion 2023 uh the global water quality monitoring market size comes from 3.8 billion in 2018 to 5.38 billion to 2027. our sales and marketing strategy regarding artemis first but the value that we pose is that the measuring and monitoring of water energy and gas networks uh we detect leakages and faults we monitor quality the target market is water companies in rural or urban irrigation and we have identified our sales team and the sales plan is to go for public tenders and partnerships face-to-face meetings with network companies and leverage on funding artemis whatever has already been implemented in many places in greece such as montevasia argos and sanfi it has been successfully installed and of course in other places such as france and portugal so the competitive advantages of artemis is first that the overall efficiency increases effective water savings are coming over overall cost reduction and real-time monitoring on the fields 24 7. winx is a company that develops digital solutions for air quality utilities transportation infrastructures aquaculture food safety and health and wellness and industrial iot logistics thank you hi everyone hello hello hello thank you thank you very much so i can start with the questions from the jury um well even in this case uh i would like to ask more detail about what you are practically going to propose for some look at you were presenting your solutions but first look is quite specific is important case and but practically what you propose for the specific case study and well the presentation was about our solution uh about water management um which has already been deployed in a few cases and uh we were planning to customize uh all of the components uh to this uh specific requirements of the client but that's a process that uh actually um it happens uh over time it needs a lot of communication with the clients and uh so our proposal proposal would be to start with the existing solution and over time we could develop more customized components in your video you commented that you integrate different uh your system in different field devices and sensors please could you specify if you have some soil plant or other real-time monitoring because in the picture i only see sensor in the pipe on the irrigation network i would like to know if which type of sensor you install on the field okay so we have worked with multiple water meters that can be either placed inside a client building or they can be placed in multiple points in the grid in the network the water network so our device goes above the existing water meters and it can integrate the measurements and send them real time to our digital platform thank you thank you hello husband thank you i would like to know what is the proximity to water leakage and um if if any of the data you collect can be sent to the farmer uh let's say they do they forgot the water on and the water is running okay so um actually the proximity to the liquid uh is dependent on the graded chest so if we have a lot of meters installed and if of course the liquid is quite big uh then we can locate it within uh about let's say 10 to 15 meters proximity uh but that is i i have to say uh is um that can only work if we have a lot of meters uh close to the liquid um however even when uh the leakage is far away from the closest meters after a while when the consumption is a lot above the usual um then we can we can again locate uh the liquids and just point two words its location and for the second part uh about the farmer each farmer has a user he has his own credentials and he can log into the system he can have he can have it on his mobile phone and receive a left that we see in we see an unusual consumption so sometimes if we have his email uh he can also receive an email uh telling them that something is abnormal and if uh he thinks he has left it open of course uh we identified it as a as a leakage but they can see that it's actually something that they like thank you thank you thank you so much to everyone thank you to the four startups that have been presenting their innovative water solutions today impressive work and we will present the following four startups after the break which are synapses bund planet neural public and our analytics so we will be back at 11 a.m sharp and we will present the four video presentations and we will take questions from the jury just as we have done with the first set of startups with seka visual nazar synaphisa and wings so good luck to everyone and thank you so much we will see you in the next 15 minutes hello everyone we are back at the innova scale agriculture competition for those who just joined us before the break we were seeing the excellent work of the four startups competing at the innovative scale and now we are looking forward to discover innovative solutions from other four startups those are sunapse bond planet neo-republic and aggro analytics so let's start with the pitch from cosmo pepe from synapses and then we will take questions from the jury just as we were doing in the previous session take the floor cosmo good morning i am cosmopedi i am one of the co-founders of italian startup called synapse our product for the ag tech is called proview the aim of proving is to solve the problem coming from the water scarcity and the water water waste in the agriculture that of course mainly because agriculture is carried on using traditional methodologies that are no longer valid plovium is learning the hydric behavior of the system composed by soil plus crop plus the geography and is able to predict this behavior five days in advance with the precision higher than 90 percent this brings irrigation cost saving that can go up to 50 percent plume works through an iot channel the gray side of the slide that's rigging data coming from the soil and from a water forecast and these data are moved to the artificial intelligence that's the orange part of the slide that's doing the job i described before the ai tools are split into subsystem the first subsystem is responsible to learning the hydra behavior and the second one is responsible to produce the irrigation advice for the farmer this technology methodology and algorithm are patented in italy and we have the pct to extend patent interaction that's some scheme coming from the application and that's the hardware the third party out where we commonly use in our installation is well known in the international irrigation management subsystem and that's some prices we want during our life some of our customers we have a wine producer we have a green chemical company we have a research institute uh i want to stress the bodyweight projective air kit that's growing dry rice and you can only imagine how important is irrigation with dry rice unique selling point of provider is is a plug-and-play application is totally independent by the soil by the crop by the geography it's hardware independent and the subscription the software subscriptions cost as low as 300 euro per view per year the target market is is are all the all the companies that are using water for the irrigation just to give you some numbers in europe are more than 3 million the model is direct plus channel and the channel are the hardware producer the irrigation system manufacturer and the i.t companies we are asking for an investment rate of 1 million and covering less than one percent of the european market will reach this number in five years the investment will be used mainly to strengthen the business development and the rest will be used to expand our uh assets and we are working on a second patent for nutrients that's the theme and that's a san luca proposal it's very uh easy proposal because it's one page proposal because program is plug-in place so we are going to use some weather station and the expansion the international especially it's it's a it's just a matter of finding the right framework economic framework agreement because plume is totally independent by the crop by the soil and by the geography so thanks for your time and join our project hello no cosmo thanks hello good morning thank you very much this was a very nice presentation and uh well quite pretty clear my point is about um water quality and for example salinity because your system is going to address quite pretty much the water quantity but do you have systems that are interfacing with water quality data salinity that is nutrients is very much actually interested for agriculture yes we are de facto already using uh in one of the installation in increa sensors that are reading the salinity the residual salinity in the in the soil and the same is for the for the nutrients uh uh for for salinity we are able to to read data uh of the salinity just just as a monitor uh we cannot do the the forecast the same forecast uh as we do for the irrigation that's for that's for sure so so the the the the the the the last word is that we can manage it we can measure the salinity we can measure the the nutrients but at the stage now we cannot uh use the same logic we use for the water quantity and time thank you thank you very much thank you i have a question similar to or related with the question of francesco you say that the system is in the pan of the soil then i am curious to know how you identify the points where the system should be installed across a large heterogeneous farm with a problem of salinity well uh the the the farmer knows where to install the when to install the the sensors because uh our our main goal uh is to address the the irrigation to give the best irrigation suggestion to the to the farmer uh and uh so uh from this point of view uh the agronomist that works for in the in the company knows how the water can move in in the in the in the field that's that's what uh what program is doing okay thank you hello guzman i have a question regarding the weather is there a mechanism to inform the farmer of an extreme weather condition event like heat waves that they can damage crops so he can go and take some measures to protect his crop yes we normally we normally use a public public service weather forecasts like aqua weather or something like that but we work with a localized weather station in the farm because we read the data then we use our input to to elaborate to work on the on the on the weather forecast to to to give it related to the exact point where is the installation uh so if there is some kind of extreme weather we can we can give an advice to the customer and he can it can react in some way thank you thank you everyone thank you cosmo and the jury let's play now the video of bond planet with jose serra answering the questions from the jury thank you and today i'm going to speak about artificial intelligence to reduce water losses this is a water reservoir in spain as you can see it's almost empty agriculture consumes around 70 percent of all the fresh water available this will increase to 90 percent in 2050 we have developed a solution called boom brain that was that is able to reduce water losses it was tested and improving in urban areas and now we want to do the same in agriculture so i will leave you with a video explanation about how the system works one brain solution reduces leaks and commercial losses using cloud computing big data hydraulic simulation and advanced mathematics one brain receives a copy of volume flow and consumption data makes an analysis and identifies pipes with a greater probability of leakage and water meters that should be checked or replaced if causing commercial losses at gunplanet we want to improve the planet with the help of software the system can adapt to every water network requirement first we can relocate the leak on a given area and after we can do it using virtual dma and do the leaks pre-location at the pipe level from the economic perspective we will direct impact on the water costs okay we will the system will help the customer reduce the consumption and the operational costs this is a result that we obtained on in germany one of our face first case studies in germany in back in 2016 as you can see the water consumption reduced by 34 percent and the water loss reduced by 50 percent some customers all of them water utilities and municipalities we started in germany and now we are going worldwide for the agriculture sector we have you may have we have two cases one from the water supplier the supply water to the farmers and which we will detect and relocate the leaks on the main distribution pipes and the other one in the irrigation in agriculture so the same cases the same case of san luca first we have to integrate all historical data to be able to perform and to apply artificial intelligence intelligence and then if we needed installation of new sensors to start to do testing and to start to check and find anomalies in the water network and we will adapt the existing solution we have for the agriculture sector that's our final goal in 2013 we started to develop the solution bull brain in 2017 we have received an award from horizon 2020 sme instruments which we have our first customers in germany spain in portugal after that in 2019 we start we start we sign it the tuition agreement with siemens and now we are in the this internationalization in the sales team expansion now we are three on the department sales department our team we are 20 people we are truly committed to the innovation truly committed to what we do helping water utilities and other companies saving water let's work together let's save water thank you very much hello hello hello and everybody procedure was very clear actually i'm working pretty much in the urban water cycle so i know the potential of your system but at the same time i have a bit of doubts how you're going to adapt this to irrigation infrastructure and to the water soil interface so this is my question um how many sensors you will need and because the availability of data is much lower in the irrigation and solar system and now you're going to take into account the interaction with soil so systems are quite different yes of course it's different and we know it's a big challenge but we know there's like agriculture consumes a lot of water and this is uh something that we are already having on on on a road map we we have like this segment that we want to attack and this is uh this was our opportunity to to do this and we've we spoke with some looker and we know on the agriculture there is a few sensors that must be installed of course we will try to adapt to the budget of different agricultures of the numbers of sensors we have to install because as as we uh on our presentation we can find and detect leaks on a parcel on a given area and we can go a little bit further further using hydraulic simulation it's like a mixing artificial intelligence and hydraulic simulation creating virtual dmas and that we can be allow to be more specific like 300 meter but this is will depend of the number of sensors it's never the same sometimes on uh on 200 meters we have to install uh on two thousand kilometers per second we have to install 10 10 flow meters or additional sensors that might help us but you will at that we you we will have to to to to speak with san luca or other companies that want to do this to adapt the situation and we we really know it's a big challenge but we don't know it's exactly which sensor if we install one sensor or two we will be able to find a leakage on a radio of 300 meters or a radio or 100 meters it will depend of the number of sensors we install of course thank you adam hello my question is about how the agricultural market accepts your experience the second question is if you have a large experience in the implementation in pre-suicide irrigation network on plot no thank you for your question no we are we don't have a any experience in agriculture this is like our approach we have a existing solution for urban areas we used to work with pressure all different type of sensors we can integrate into bomb brain all different sensors we different brands model and so on but we don't have an experience uh yet into this field okay we are trying to go and we love challenge we want to go through this and make it happen but we don't have uh sorry but we don't have any experience working with the agriculture sector okay thank you hello jose i had the same question with francesco so i had to find a new question for you um in your video you say that you decrease the water losses by 50 in european areas and by 34 the water consumption how did you decrease the water consumption the with um with the client of course we don't work on the field what we do which we reduce the the consumption because we we started if you saw in the video and when in the when we did the implementation we've uh detect a lot of different leaks and one of them was big was a big leakage and that big league goes underground and there was there was unable to find all that leakage and in this in this case this first case study that you saw we had like nine sensors installed and we could find a leakage from 0.3 liters per second it's a very small leakage so we was able to find in a short period of time a lot of leakage and one big one that was uh increasing this consumption on those on that area that was the reason we we we we we achieved that that that combination with the with the customer because after that we we we generate the event the customer the user will we get the event on his mobile on his email and they have a leakage on this area and they automatically start with the people on the field searching for the leak those leakage and we we had lucky and it was a great project to start because the results was amazing thank you you're welcome thank you everyone thank you jose and the jury let's continue now with the next meeting with vasilis from representing new republic hello my name is vasilis portugus and i represent neuropublic and innovative informatics and technology company based in peru's greece i will start right away presenting our proposed solution for the agricultural use case we all know that farmers including smallholder ones are responsible for producing safe and sufficient food for the ever-growing global population at the same time farmers face some serious challenges that affect the financial sustainability and environmental impact of food production so we need to help farmers address these challenges and this is where yes and smart farming system comes into the picture yes and she's a greek innovation that combines information technologies with agricultural science and helps farmers reduce the impact of the reproduction of the environment optimize the use of inputs like irrigation water reduce their production costs and improve production in terms of quality and quality the yes and smart farming system makes use of data acquired from four different sources satellites that grow meteorological stations of narrow public the agricultural advisor and the farmer or his agronomist this data is collected stored processed and fit scientific models for the irrigation fertilization and crop protection of its crop it finally turns into smart farming advice with the help of an experienced agricultural advisor yes covers a constantly growing agricultural area in greece currently supporting more than 30 crops it has also been used abroad at a smaller scale in countries like spain portugal poland ukraine and cyprus one of the crops that yes and supports is peach it sells a lot with apricots the crop that our use case focuses on and pits farmers already reap the benefits of the essence using the essence farmer safe and inputs improve crop quality and quantity and increase their total benefit by up to 44 percent compared to the competition gasenc is a well-balanced and fully featured smart farming system that provides a wide variety of services through a small annual fee and without any need for investing in expensive technological equipment essence is based on the collaboration of a diverse team of experts in various fields a selected subset of this big team is going to contribute to a potential collaboration with san lucar in our use case we have to help some look at address their water scarcity and challenge issues they face our workforce focus on their production sites in the area of santa maria and murcia spain where some local producers grow apricots we can help some local improve their irrigation strategy the efficiency of the available irrigation water and work on the issue of high salinity europe public has already implemented a high number of smart farming projects in greece and abroad so have set up a solid workflow for the implementation of such projects data acquisition will start in the first year and data will be available to san luca while the irrigation advice will be eventually provided during the second year we have already collected and used satellite data to calculate various indexes like evi ndvi ndwi and tto for the specific area for 2020. in addition we acquired temperature and rainfall data from the mucia meteorological station to validate the satellite data on top of that we calculated spi to identify the drought events in the study area identifying the eight extreme events so far all these will be combined with the results of soil and water analysis and various other data and will feed the years irrigation decision support system this system visualizes a wealth of irrigation-related data and contributes to the provision of an easy-to-apply advice consisting of the optimum irrigation time and dose for each person so we at neuropublic believe that our hsn smart farming system will be the ideal solution to address the challenges of san luca and we would like to thank you for providing us with opportunity to be among the shortlisted candidates okay vasilis hello mercedes yes hello can you see me hello tool we can hear you but we cannot see you anyway i think we can proceed no he's out now [Music] unfortunately vasilisk was having a little bit of internet connection problems so let's see if he can join he can join back otherwise we can jump into the last startup i'm here sorry fantastic good to have you here great thanks a lot uh what's his representation well uh i'm pretty much concerned about salinity's maybe you understood from my previous questions and i have noticed that immediate issue in the military and well you were presenting a really good analysis of the case study even in musia and you're presenting how you are going to use high level data what about again water and soil salinity out of monitoring monitoring was okay but how you're going to support decisions to fight this knowledge okay so uh thank you for the question uh it's uh we're talking about two issues one in the show it's also lint and the water salinity in the first case about soil salinity what we we are doing with our yes and smart farming system is to make sure that we provide a good advice to farmers about the fertilization so they don't overuse fertilizers they avoid putting too much nutrients in the soil which may affect the salinity of of the soil this is a different service it's a part of the total services offered by jsons and it's one part of the solution that can can address the salinity issue so in its case farmers know what fertilizer to use which nutrients to use when to apply them to the field and how to avoid overusing or stressing their crops by through the inaccessibility of fertilizers and nutrients on the other hand and what's at the heart of what we are proposing here and it has to do with irrigation water the salinity what we are proposing and doing is to we are using some reversal osmosis units that address the salinity issue of irrigation water and on top of that they are powered by solar panels and this reduces the energy required for the usage of this of this component and in the case where this is possible so we need the they have the batteries and they also use the solar panels on top of them and we make sure that in both cases both in the soil and in the water we reduce the salinity to the to the minimum possible thanks a lot thank you thank you francesco hello vasily hi teresa a priority there are several companies that could be similar to your company where we have a satellite images sensor in situs and also analyze this data and do the recommendation what would your difference be with respect to the other other solutions to our understanding what the main difference between our proposed solution and the other solution is the use of research outcomes we use we mainly use scientific models that are developed by collaborative researchers specialized in the irrigation fertilization crop protection meteorologists etc so have this different scientific models for each crop and for each case for example have a different irrigation model for pits for and it is adapted to the need adjust to the needs of a specific microclimatic area or conditions so it's not a ready-made solution of the box as it is and this is why we usually need about one cultivation period in order to adjust our system to set up the data acquisition infrastructure and make sure that our scientific models work perfectly in the specific area before we start providing advice i think this is the main difference between the proposed solution of jsons and other other systems okay thank you thank you okay hello vasilis i have two more questions does the farmer need some economies to use yesens and which is a small fee you mentioned for your services okay uh the first part uh while the advice is very it's uh very easy to for for a farmer to understand and apply in the field we always suggest that he has his agronomist by by side because he he will be able to evaluate the advice and help the farmer apply it in the field in the best possible way but the farmer does not then does not need any digital skills or specialized knowledge to use the years and smart marketing system everything is pretty simple and for the second part about the the fee what we are doing with essence is we follow a smart farming as a service model it's more or less like the cellular the phones you know the telephony where the company pays for the infrastructure like the telemetric stations and we are talking about this uh agro meteorological stations iot devices that new public designs and develops and evolves so they are built in house and the farmer does not have to pay anything up apart from this small subscription fee he doesn't have to pay about the infrastructure or the tools etc because we we address each case as a unique case we don't have a fixed price list for example we don't have a because the fee depends on various factors like the total size the area that needs to be covered by the services of the essence the number of different parcels that are will be covered if it's not a uniform a complete area the type of crop if essence has already been applied in the nearby area et cetera and this creates a very high diversity of prices so it's very hard easy to make an estimate for each case so we treat each case as a as a unit case thank you very much thank you very much to everyone i'm pleased to present aggro analytics the last organization competing at the innovate scale competition represented by antoni lamaggioni take the floor antonella hello my name is antonella ceo and co-founder of our analytics i'm going to present our company for the auriculture challenge in the competition organized by afoot and when we started agro last year we found a huge problem in water management sector specifically in agriculture and i'm going to tell you some statistics currently 70 of fresh water is used in agriculture and it is estimated that by 2050 the population will reach 10 billions which means that the demand for food will double we need to produce more with less but current solutions are expensive not integrated in one platform and enabled to monitor entire terrains our solution an integrated platform to manage predictive and real-time forfeit information on water availability and its affection crops aggro offered two different packs pac-1 combines remote sensing public weather stations and machine learning and our models are able to calculate water availability in every place of land using hydrological values the second pack is able to integrate to our pac-1 sensor data as private and virtual weather stations allowing us to validate and train model more accurately finally we provide all this information in a user-friendly dashboard for example here you can see the vegetation index in one of san luca terrains and our solution is able to optimize water availability up to 40 percent which means cost saving tech is a booming sector investment in active grow 370 percent the last six year of which 3.3 billions were invested in europe and a smart irrigation is expected to grow at the compounding annual growth of 17 reaching 9 billion in 2027. we have started in spain but thanks to the scalability of our technology we have an ambitious expansion plan to france italy mexico and u.s and that's why our forecasted arr is 40k for year one 600k for year two and 2.8 million for year 3. our business model is a b2b sas focus on unions and agricultural companies having a freemium model anti-5 hectares a pro plan of 25 until 10 hectares and a customized plan according to customer necessities that will be charged by hectares and by users we have been working since march when we launched our mvp with four pilot clients we got nine more clients with the launching of our beta version and we are expected to reach 23 clients in our first year of operations in the competition landscape where we see our main added value is we are able to give universal club recommendations while we train and validate our model through different apis that's why we have a strong partnership strategy allowing us to offer a complete solution and accelerate growth we raise our present run in march and now we have secured an additional 78k and our seed round will be in march 2022 and our goal is to raise 500k what is most important to us and we are we are most proud of is our amazing team we come from different backgrounds and culture angodunas is the desire to drive sustainable agriculture for a healthier world do you want to be part of a revolution join us thank you [Music] hello thank you for your presentation it was very clear well i have a different question for you uh that is more curiosity you're presenting pretty much your roadmap for your business do you think that the business model pay as you save can be applicable to your solution pay as you save okay yeah it could be yeah so we started with this um initial pricing that is per hectare but then we have a an additional type of monitation monetization that is a percentage of the money of clients could say so we started with this because we are new in the market but we have in mind to our go-to-market strategy different prices like um according to how many are able to save their companies thank you welcome good morning i can hear you you're muted so now yeah good morning again i have uh two question linked and the first one is if you could specify in which crop you have validated in your system and the second is that i imagine that you are planning to extend your applicability to different crops then how festival and quick its mind to be incorporate a new crop in into your system yeah so we have been working in fruits and vegetables mainly in tropical fruits like avocado tomato cucumber and this is our asparagus our main pilot client but then we focus our product from a balanced energy strategy which means that it will be applicable to every crop because we it doesn't matter the state the phenological stage of the crop so and we can then improve the recommendation for example but with more information like sensor or different information but our technology is applicable and scalable to every type of crops in this in this moment thank you you're welcome hello the question of me is which is the difference in savings from the two packs you mentioned in the video uh the first pack with other without the um in c2 sensors and the second pack yeah so um our model is able to predict um or to give recommendation without sensor so we get information from weather station from satellite information and topographic information and we are able to give information because we have different type of clients we have companies or unions that they don't have information and we need to give at least some recommendation so we are able to give it but then we have companies that they want to implement more technology and our main added value is we can um improve the recommendation with different type of sensors it doesn't have to be a lot of sensor like um an only sensor company because we are able to give information according to the type different index or type of soil so we can get this information from satellite and then with this sensor we can train our machine learning model and we are able to improve the recommendation and then is the same with weather station that we can we are now working with public weather station but we can include virtual weather station or private weather station to improve the recommendation and train our model to be more accurate along the way the time thank you you're welcome thank you very much antonella and the jury we have now completed the second round of beaches today i hope you enjoyed discovering solutions that address key challenges on water availability and shortages salt concentrations crop water efficiency and water savings i think we hear that great overview of the problems uh expressed by the problem holder so to recap eight startups are competing for three prizes and the winners will be announced at the year the end of the event good luck to all the startups and before we jump into the next session a special thanks to the members of the jury to francesco fatone andreas chris santo and teresa carrillo for the excellent questions thank you and while the jury deliberates about the winners let's continue with an interesting conversation on challenges and opportunities in the water and agri-food sector we will take questions coming from social media channels at the end so please remember to write your questions on the chat of linkedin twitter and also on the youtube comments okay so without more hesitation i'm very happy to welcome stuart regular founder of rewolf he will be acting as the moderator of the round table and he will introduce you the topic and the speakers welcome stuart hello thank you patricia for the introduction and thank you everyone for having me today my name is stuart reigeluth i'm the founder of revolve and for this session we're going to address as patty just mentioned the challenges and opportunities for investing in water and agri-food which is a rather daunting task we all know that agriculture uses some 60 to 70 percent of water resources available to humans we know that the risks of water access and availability are increasing with climate change it's exacerbating droughts and flash floods for example which begs the questions how can water usage be optimized so there's less waste and more efficiency how can we increase investments in agri-food that are sustainable in the long run today's roundtable seeks to address these questions and builds on the un food system summit just a couple weeks ago on the 23rd of september that stressed the need to move towards and i quote nature positive production agri-food is perhaps the industry with the largest environmental footprint so finding the right formula is primordial for reaching unsdgs in particular number two on zero hunger and number six on clean water that uh that most everyone viewing us today and calling in is familiar with i'm happy today to be joined by four leading experts in these fields uh we have gaitan suzanet with us today andrew walker maria achivari toda and david smith i'm going to briefly introduce the speakers together and then each we'll have a few minutes to give their opening remarks so with a strong focus on the water sector gaetan suzanet has worked for over 25 years in different private equity and venture capital funds in france the uk and the usa including astor capital amongst others andrew walker hardly needs an introduction he's an international marketing strategist specialized in water and as of last month he has he was appointed chief marketing officer of the enhanced membrane company g2o water technologies that is based in the uk miss maria toda has worked for over 10 years with venture capital she is director of investment portfolios at the volsa social fund a newly created social and environmental impact fund based in madrid spain and lastly david smith is director of water environment and business for development he's a core member of the iwa working groups and he has implemented numerous projects for horizon 20 europe aids global green growth institute world bank the inter-american development bank amongst other private sector partners so without further ado uh gaitan the floor is yours to give us some insights into what you see as the main challenges thank you stuart thank you for sitting this in hello everyone um you've given some context about the topic of this run table today if i may i would add to that that the let's say a great food sector is also a market and that's i think important also to say that in the context of the investment world somebody has to sell something and somebody has to buy something very simple but i thought i would i would add that and the good news is i would say that the agri-food sector is changing in terms of its practices in terms of looking at innovation in terms of the business models but also the technologies which are available and we've seen obviously a good sample just just now and i must say that it is a positive trend and you will understand that in a minute as to why i'm saying this is because when i started working in this area in the agri-food sector 10 years ago it was not the case we were looking for technologies we were looking for let's say putting the supply and demand together and we were actually looking for for innovation so there was a demand from the market but it was difficult to find the innovation and the reason why it was difficult to find the innovation it was also because the investment world was not really interested in this area at the time but now things are changing if we said the context and if i may i would like to share with you just a few numbers antonella from agua analytics gave us obviously the the overall investment money invested so far in in agri-food which is three billion but i think now we need to go into a bit more details and i think there are some quite interesting trends the first one is that from what we have seen this morning in terms of the technologies in europe because this 3 billion is just in europe in europe less than 10 percent of the investment is actually dedicated to software to iot to sensors compared to almost 25 percent to what we are calling the novel or the new farming systems like indoor farming for instance and just to give an example in europe i'm sure you're all aware of the fact that for instance in farm the berlin-based startup has raised quite a few millions to develop its its technology and its innovation so there is a dichotomy between what we hear in terms of what is actually available in the areas of interest to us this morning and the investment actually dedicated to this area the other the other number i would like to share with you and i'm just going to come on to the challenges is that investment for the agri-food sector represent globally only 10 percent so the majority of the money is actually going to china and to the us so despite the fact that we have a few act tech funds and i'm very pleased of that or that existing funds and i'm talking about funds in general although i'm more specialized in vc funds open new areas with the actec the money is still not dedicated to the areas that would be of interest to us this morning related to tackling water scarcity and water efficiency just to finish on my introduction sorry a bit longer just to say the context i would say that in terms of challenges i would list three challenges the first one is the economics i mean what we have seen this morning is a lot of good tech it's basically from an investment point of view how are you making sure that the business model is going to be sustainable and make sure that you're going to be actually be profitable at the end the second one which is linked to it is the scale-up process know from from this 10 percent dedicated of you know the 10 investment dedicated to these companies in europe or scale ups there's going to be only a happy fear so the scale-up issue and the consolidation issue and i can come back to that later on is very important and the last one is if you want to scale up you need to access big money and big money doesn't mean not just you know the famous one million that the scale-up are very happy to raise one million you burn that you know within a few months or within you know a few weeks if you already want to scale up compared to what i said you know the 400 million raised you know by info so that said the context we have good news i think there are still challenges to work on and i'm with them i would be very pleased to hear from my colleagues you know what they think about these challenges thank you start great thank you very much katen yes the market is moving and although europe may have the smaller slice of the pie globally still uh on the move let's say uh let's turn the floor over to andrew to give us some insights into the more the water angle of things go ahead andrew yeah hi there it's lovely to see you guytan uh stewards i'm really representing the water tech side of things and we've heard some wonderful examples this morning uh very innovative solutions working towards circularity reducing uh footprints making things more efficient and for me when it comes to agriculture we do not have a technology problem uh i think that's quite clear and i think that's a summary of what we've seen this morning already the biggest challenge really for water tech companies if i have that hat on is that the agri sector is pretty difficult to engage with so there are really very very many dispersed entities that you would have to deal with the regulations in different countries even different regions and certainly across big geographies like europe or or north america they can change quite a lot as well and that makes it a less attractive proposition certainly for a smaller company to try and engage with that marketplace because it's extremely fragmented and there's also a perception and that really builds upon what gay tan was talking about that there's actually not that money being invested in if you like circular technologies in in agriculture that the practices if you look at irrigation if you look at the way that the runoff from agriculture is just let to go into the into the water streams little circularity that there's really really um an old way of approaching water in in in agriculture and and the regulations although certainly the water reuse regulations in europe have helped to some extent the actual practice and the execution is quite slow and the regulations can be a little vague in in specific applications at least so um that's the the the challenge almost um but i'd like to support gear tan's message as well that there are a lot of dynamics in the market right now i i just came back from a wonderful event in in amsterdam in the netherlands which in terms of horticulture is of course you know a big big center of expertise worldwide the netherlands exports the second amount of food worldwide behind the united states and for such a small country with a relatively small population compared to the states or the whole of europe that's really significant so it's a hotbed for where policy making and entrepreneurs technology science where that all comes together and investment as well and i think what was really interesting there is that uh the so-called controlled environment agricultural sector is booming and infarm was one mentioned uh from guitar a moment ago there are there are multiple applications of both greenhouse agriculture as well as vertical farms that's being driven of course by consumers renewed love of vegetables and fruits and leafy salads etc and healthier diets so that's the the one trend there of course but also of course because of certain breakdowns in the supply chain we've observed in the last 18 months especially um you know people want to become a lot more autonomous in terms of the food supply chain then the the further trend is urbanization and also bringing those food supply opportunities closer to the city so urban farming or farming just outside on the periphery of of of towns and cities is is a massive massive massive area of investment and the good thing for water tech companies is that that marketplace is particularly easy to engage with it's predominantly driven by entrepreneurs and there's a lot of investment going into that in farm yeah that that's one um in north america they've even been spacks set up so uh special purpose acquisition companies which are basically it's a it's a holding for a lot of money with a rough intention of we want to invest this money in this kind of area so it's rather vague but there's been tremendous amount of capital um around food security particularly in north america so there are two two tech companies or developers of technologies for urban farming uh and greenhouses which deserve a mention in north america just to have a look at what they're doing one of them is called 80 acres farms and they've raised not only a few million gatan but nearly a billion in capital to be able to basically install um a farm with the capacity of 80 acres of food produce within every urban centre in north america that's their mission um well worth looking up and well worth looking at the ted talk from their owner uh mike zilkind i i'm doing blatant promotion but i have no affiliation to them it's just it's just really worth looking at the case study student and the second company worth looking at is an entrepreneur who was big into renewable power and solar power particularly in north america and he has launched a company called app harvest appalachian harvest not peppers in the app harvest and they've raised as well a tremendous amount of capital from a very hungry market of private investors big pension funds all really looking to get onto the food security bandwagon if you like in europe the investments i've observed and heard about last week are more from if you want to call it the patient investment community the um large-scale pension funds and and in the netherlands is a bank called the rabobank which helps to finance these deals and they have a very very long long-term view and those investments are very interesting and it's also driving water recycling at point of use so if you've got these large greenhouses you know they're going to be operated very efficiently of course they have a potential as well with uh aquaponics as well as in vertical farms to do tremendous things with water but quite often the water supply there is is even more precarious than it might be on the open field in certain applications of these so the paradox is i think that on the one side we have the the traditional agricultural sector extremely inefficient wasting a tremendous amount of water very little recycling at point of use runoff of nutrients into into the water streams causing eutrophication all kinds of problems climate change exasperating the situation tons of water scarcities wine growers in france really struggling with their harvest and with their with their yields i mean you're going to see this year the wine from 2021 is in in france gaetan i'm sure you can support that it's going to be few and far between and very expensive and there's been a a really difficult year this year and so water is playing such a tremendously important role there um but i think we're going to see the trends and the investments and the growth happening in the controlled environment agriculture i asked just to stop sir very quickly with some stats again stuart if i may i asked in one session i was sharing last week some vertical farming experts in in europe and we had um some asian vertical farming experts on the floor and said well in a scale of sort of zero to ten in terms of how ubiquitous vertical farms are you know are they widespread are they all over the place where are we today and where will we how long will it take to get to you know seven or eight you know fairly widespread so the answer of course from both of them was we're at 0.1 in terms of vertical farms so there's still a lot of work to do tremendous amount of investment being channeled in there and the answer from europe was well you know by 2030 2031 we're gonna have a fairly widespread setup in terms of vertical farms you know on a scale of seven or eight out of ten and the asians then said of course well uh from korea we're a little bit faster than you guys move we think 2025 we're gonna have you know on the scale of zero to ten we're gonna have seven or eight in terms of vertical farms there so look at the dynamics which are happening there look at the investments look at the players it's pretty easy to engage with if i was a watershed company i am i that's where i will be focusing my my energy stream great thank you andrew for those insights and we'll get back to the opportunities hopefully in the second half of our of our interventions here let's pass the four please to miss maria so she can give us some uh views into the challenges for startups and for investors let's get a little bit on both sides of the coin there hi hello thank you stuart andrea anderson for the interesting points you shared i will just add uh from my investors from my investor point of view like what i think there are the challenges for startups other startups face what are the trends and what are the investors looking for so what are the challenges that startups face i mean they're actually a lot but i will summarize them in three funding grow and scale up and long sales cycles find funding there's a lot of competitions and uh you see want to invest invest in class so and of course when once we invest in um any of them we do not invest in the competition so entrepreneurs have to work on an innovative solution and start to execute as soon as possible so they have good kps apis to show to show investors grow up grow and scale up growing and skill a company is hard um i mean if you have technology and funding it will be easier that's for sure but again there's a lot of competition and now it's not enough to help the sector just to detail side the digital lights for example so um you have to offer innovative and scalable solutions and low sales cycles there will sector in in spain and europe i know more spain but in europe is the same it needs to digitize but large traditional companies they are often reluctant to do so so uh therefore startups must cope with very long sales cycles sometimes as long as two years before they acquire a client and this in turn means they must have sufficient funds to stay afloat during this long period so uh i mean it's quite hard these challenges and it's just like a summarize so then what the trends some months ago a ud the eig iit put published the five the top five trends for the agritech industry in 2021 uh which i agree with from them actually that at they are like innovative proteins it started at plant-based foods but now it's way more than that including insects for example health as we consumers are more conscious of our nutrition and lifestyle convenience direct to consumer aggregate services which is not new but it is starting to be profitable sustainability and reducing waste everything related with food waste water waste water scarcity we have seen today a lot of uh these companies they are facing these these huge problems and the fifth one the fifth one uh you mentioned that i i really think included in the health trend which is new flavors and experiences i think that these are these new flavors ultimately aim to improve our health for example starches that manufacture plant-based products or alternative proteins such as insects insects as we say so at the end uh what what are investors looking for visas or impact visits like the one i'm working for i would say we are looking for the first and most important thing winning teams we look for top teams with relevant industry experience with one of you we were talking about this like if some of the jury they asked him if he has uh industry experience this is very important this is a very complicated sector so with the relevant industry experience that have ambition to grow and with complementary backgrounds for example amigos a mix of sales operations and tech people and favorable industry structure i mean having said that we are opportunistic and we like to invest in favorable industry trends such as the ones we mentioned alternative proteins good health and well-being convenience we look for sizeable markets uh more than one billion euros at least that are growing uh with where competitive competition intensity is low and where variants of entry are high that's the best scenario and then a scalable business model in terms of business model we love guitar talk uh about it as well we love software service i mean because it's it means recurrent revenues and high margins so always success is really a trend especially if it includes data analytics artificial intelligence this helps farmers to be aware of their fields 24 7 and also receive others that when they know i mean what they need to irrigate when they where their crops are at risk due to pets for example and so far as a service and the other scalable business model i would like iot it's a trend as well and it's helped as it helps farmers to get data and monitor the crops from analytical dashboards and take action based on insights iot in agriculture it uses robots drones remote sensors and computer imaging combined with continuously progressive machine learning and analytical tools for monitoring crops surveying and mapping the the fields and it provides data to farmers for rational rational farm management plans and the fourth i said the investors were looking for win teams a variable industry structure scalable business model and innovative products i mean we like to invest in innovative products that have a sustainable competitive competitive advantage for sure so um okay i know these these points are useful for for you to understand what's in an investor's mindset yes but we can go through through them during this panel if you want thank you very much maria the way you describe it is like very difficult to break into this market so if for the startups and scale-ups that might be still viewing this congratulations for participating in these pitches and in these bids because it's it's not easy david what's your um what's your perspective please in the main challenge yeah i could say some of the opportunities if you want and we'll try to relay that in because we're perfect yeah thank you very much uh stuart um and also uh thank you to my colleagues on this on this roundtable especially maria i think your insights were specifically valuable for uh for young startups wanting to to enter into this this market of course we know the key challenges from a environmental uh point of view and the ideas of population growth and an increased need of production and and indeed providing livelihoods for the farmers and and protecting the environment are some of obviously the key issues that we've seen around the uh what we've seen from a global perspective in in covet 19 it's and climate change these are really uh threat multipliers to what is really happening in the sector as it is when we look at the the idea of water availability and shortages and the salt concentrations and the water savings that are needed within within the the sectors and obviously combining that with the different sectors and making sure that we're using the water equitably between between all indeed there was a uh a recent uh publication by um the union for the the mediterranean that that said that the the introduction of organ organizational innovations where we're talking about new business models or aggregations or partnerships will become crucial for the agri-food businesses to survive so i find those those quite heavy words in in saying that how important it is to uh to have partnerships and uh and to make sure that there are collaborations that are happening within that and i think that goes really well and hand in hand with what maria was saying is that when they looking to uh to um to provide financing uh to uh to these uh scale ups and uh smes they're looking for partnerships they're looking for skill sets they're looking for teams that are able to bring every everything uh together and then i'll add one more challenge to to that that the um that the startups in the sector potentially face and that's confidence in the in their product process or methodology and a lot of time they have a very brilliant idea but it's lacking time in the market and and this is uh makes it very nervous for investors or very nervous for for the actual uh end users to take that up because they're not sure how it will actually work within within their own business and their own sector in terms of the opportunity side as a as a business owner and sme owner in the environmental sector i really cannot stress this idea enough of cost sectoral partnerships collaboration and cooperation for us it has been absolutely key to to have success in this sector and to and to move forward and if you're looking um to to grain partnerships look also outside of your own your own sector so not only looking at partnerships uh within the agri agribusiness but also the the water tech side uh have a look at the different stakeholder groupings and where you can potentially find interesting partnerships that maybe before you hadn't even considered i'd say the idea of having a look at the systemic approach to the entire problem will help to find further opportunities in areas that perhaps you haven't seen before in fact we heard from fernando from from san luca that he said that they were busy collaborating with some smes to overcome their challenges and i think that's really key because as a business they focused on their their main area of expertise and when you get the smaller companies that are specialized in a particular aspect they can partner together with the larger companies and bring solutions and innovations to to the market oftentimes i've seen businesses trying to get into the market and recently i've i've been i've had the pleasure to to mentor a company in the water in the water business and water sector side with a brilliant innovation in the in that sector but they're really struggling to get market penetration and the and the reason i could see behind that is that they just weren't where they needed to be and that really for me is to be in platforms in networks in communities of practice demonstrate your technology in a living lab situation so bring that technology right into practical implementation get improved and get confidence in that product and that will increase the potential for uh for for investment one of the uh and i'll finish one of the greatest uh areas that i can potentially see in terms of where innovation can happen within this sector and it was actually luciano from the sikh that mentioned there's a large potential for the innovation in water markets and this is basically where we're seeing water as an acid and can be treated as a tradable commodity and that can actually help to allocate water and address the problem of water scarcity but when we look at that as a common good and potential poor management that can lead to the higher social cost potentially blockchain technology can bring in a small smart water market and and will enable for uh to effectively allocate water resources empower the consumers and and to bring economic and social value and to incentivize the the the conservation of this of this resource so just to finish um i think my main point here is collaboration partnerships and by doing that you're bringing strong teams and and getting confidence in your product and you can bring it into the market great thank you so much and david the um the emphasis on cross-sectoral partnerships getting out of silos also looking to local partners you mentioned that may know the terrain better than a big multinational that may try to come in and pose a solution right so working with the partners that that really know their milieu and their environment let's say um i'm sure some of what you said resonates with gaitan and and andrew so let's pass the floor back to them to see um from both of them and then also from maria gaitan any follow-up thoughts on opportunities and areas that could be exploited by the newcomers let's say if they're already [Laughter] now we all talked about the challenges you know let's be positive yes um actually what you said david you know is music to my ears you know about blockchain about partnership because i think blockchain is a good example of being in a partnership for wisely managing water resources in a way that doesn't trade water that you actually trade you know the system and it's probably one way forward and personally i'm a great believer in this that that could be the way forward in europe as we are organized to to to move you know the water management issue forward um just to respond to your questions to us i think you know we we all know the fact that it is a global market that there's a lot of money available as andrew was was mentioning in the us and probably hopefully soon also in europe we know the pain points now let's do it i would say it's it's rather you know implementation um it's also about the business model and i mean maria i can also echo exactly what you said and andre i think we're all on the same page here that we have all the instruments we all know what to do now it's transferring this to to the market and i think the fact that there is the you know wide scale competition and program is good because it's understanding what the market wants with what the startups can provide i know it's not the challenge discussion but one challenge still i think from the market and from the investor point of view and if we have scale-ups listening to us is really as mario is saying what is the differentiating factor from the rest of the world because we can say that the market is reluctant and i hear your points about the fact that it's difficult to enter the agri-food market but the feedback that we get from the market is also it's difficult for us to decide which solution to pick up okay so this is this is an opportunity now with all these programs going on to understand where the market positioning can be um what are the differentiating factors and how each solution can best serve a portion of this very big market i think that's where the opportunities are now really uh to move forward and the last one i think in terms of opportunities it's also understanding the relationship between the economics and the environment it's not one or the other but the good news is i think you know with the new solutions coming onto the market now is that the startups understand that it's not just about solving the water scarcity problem it's solving the water scarcity problem and making sure that the productivity is here that the social benefits are also taken into account yeah and if i had one piece of recommendation for the future it would be really get your economics right to make sure that the market is fully aware of the benefits of the solution and that reduced the sales of other life cycle yeah okay thanks great and um andrew picking up on that and what you mentioned earlier i believe you said no this is not a technology problem you know the technologies are there right is it let me be a little bit controversial and say is it a culture of funding is there a mentality difference between the americas and asia that are a bit more risk taking and europeans a little bit more risk adverse and may like to rely on grants and things like that do you see that coming into the equation or am i off base there well let me let me shy away from asia not being too uh too much of an expert on there at least not recently but certainly when it comes to america you've seen a tremendous amount of money which has been invested in because of the fear of missing out so the fomo effect and i'm not sure if that is a healthy development because that typically can lead to bubbles bursting etc so be very interesting to watch the vertical farming and uh greenhouse you know controlled environment agriculture market segment in the in the states um i think in europe um the investments are a little bit more substantial in terms of their sustainability because like gatan already said you've got to get the economics right but also from the investment side of things it's not you know a sustainable investment opportunity and a sustainable economic opportunity uh then we run into all kinds of other problems um so that's the the way i would say that i think europe is in in great shape to change things and i've seen things being changed very quickly i just think that we may be speaking to the wrong people and i think that the market is being heavily disrupted through increasing consumer trends and to build upon blockchain and what david and georgetown were talking about you know we have a very lineal system archaic system really which is being changed quite rapidly and it's being changed at an accelerated pace because of the lockdowns we've been in so consumer behaviors and the value in the appreciation of good food has grown up trend tremendously veganism is on on a big march forward and whether you like it or not um you know kids nowadays demand it want it and so there's a lot more plant-based diets coming in into the sector and that gives a completely new outlook for entrepreneurs and i'm working in the horticultural sector actually with a number of completely um left field players uh so for example i met with four gentlemen uh who have created a startup in germany about vertical farms and they are going into property development um schemes in particular in the rawga beats around you know dusseldorf and dortmund and that area in the northwest and the west and with the rejuvenation projects going on there new buildings a lot of tenants don't want to live on the ground floor and so their pitch is okay well let's get in and do something with this property and they come up came up with vertical farms so you have then a situation where a community starts to get farming in its basement on the ground floor and imagine then if blockchain comes in and you perhaps have some co-ownership of that farm and you are exchanging uh transactions around that you own your own buildings uh yeah produce of at least leafy vegetables your tomatoes your cucumbers your chilies your strawberries in the middle of winter very healthy very efficient you have your you know a great led lighting down there you have your water aquaponics and you own it all yourself you don't need a farm which is uh you know in south africa on the other side of the world transporting produce uh with 20 different people in the supply chain no you break it down so you've got three people in the supply chain between you and the seller that's it it's absolutely magnificent those i think are the disruptive technologies and situations we need to look into closely and i'm sure that farmers if they're not awake to it yet need to to be thinking about that very very carefully yeah thanks andrew bringing it local the reality check maria did this uh kick off any ideas sparked some some thoughts about some of the cases you might have in your portfolio you're on mute so by the way okay yeah we in our portfolio we invested in um in a company called rodata find startup i know you know it i mean it has translator that operates in the aggregate sector uh has developed a b2b sat that uses artificial intelligence with data and factory images that are those farmers constantly monitor the health of their frogs their fields so it's a position farming technology since it allows farmers perform the right intervention in the in the right place in the right the right time responding to the specific demands on on individual crops and individual areas of land so it has it has many functionalities in integrates among other the irrigation regulation recommendations so customers can enter data and how much and when they have irrigated and uh and the software cross this data with weather information to make more accurate decisions about obligations are made and thereby helping them save water so for farming enterprises for data helps optimize resources such as chemical fertilizer fertilizer use and water consumption while boosting uh land productivity so that this is our only in our only at the the only company we have invested in in this area but uh really we are looking for more companies because we really see here there's a pain and we are an impact fund so we have to look for problems and uh there's a big and huge opportunity so i i like very much all the companies here in this program that they share their project i think really there's a huge acute um opportunity because there's a huge problem here yeah thanks maria one of the things that jumped out at me when i was listening to the pitches was one of the companies mentioned that there's 20 to 40 percent of europe's water is lost to leakages that's like 30 of water lost just to leakages in old pipes old infrastructure in in cities and arguably out towards agriculture in the peri-urban spaces that's not really a technology problem that's an infrastructure problem so if we're saving water on on the efficiency side of where it's coming out of the tap that's one thing but um i don't know that just seems like a colossal a colossal feat um david or gay 10 if you want to jump in on that point or any other opportunity stuart actually um my in my previous life uh i worked at uh one of the largest uh water treatment uh companies in in the uk at thames water and it was a big big issue and thirty percent of uh of water was lost through through leakage uh it's a massive uh massive problem for for water uh companies that they have been focusing on over the last couple of years and it's been a big impetus because the regulators are behind that to make sure that that is being being eliminated and in fact while i was still there they they put through a large program of fixing leakages so much so that they were able to close down two water treatment plants because they were saving enough water that they didn't need those two two plants anymore so it just does show that there's a lot of efficiencies that can still be gained not only in the water sector but indeed across the the agri-food food business all together i just wanted to jump on quickly on andrew's point that he mentioned about the uh the vertical the vertical farms and that that one that he gave from uh from dusseldorf i think it's a brilliant example not not because of the technology because here often we do focus on on technology and something tangible something you can hold and that's innovation right but but innovation is also on the social side on the business side on the economics and this is something that uh guytan has mentioned as well you know get to get your economics right and um and i think the innovation in those areas is there's still a lot to be done and a lot that can be improved on and the the example that andrew gave shows a really nice idea of that social and economic innovation coming together with technology and i think that's where the opportunities lie i would uh i would say that uh it would say it would say there are over separation of markets of course i don't think so because as we're all saying there's a lot of value of players but not that many success stories not many winners yet and there's there's always a space for improvement and here as as they were saying there's still a space of improvement and we need these success stories so um because the scale of the problem is big and also a few a few numbers as well like there's 2.6 trillion dollars in the value of food waste waste wasted every year 2.6 trillion dollars i mean that's huge and so food production accounts for 26 percent of the global greenhouse gas emissions i think this retail will show before as well and there's 99 billion uh is the estimated population the world is set to reach by 2050. so i mean we need a starter that's able to drift agricultural productivity so we can produce more food but with less resources so there's there's acute i mean the scale of the problem is so big we were saying but i think maria's point is very you know uh comparable to the water losses so we lose you know a third of the food is wasted and let's say a third david was was quoting a situation which is improving but let's say a third of the water is lost as well in these big big archaic systems um if we can get rid of that waste we're already in in great great great great shape for water abundance and if you imagine that if thames water was losing so much you know a very highly professional utility in a with resources to fix that problem imagine what the agricultural sector then is losing it's not going to be 20 it's gonna be a lot more than that so if we're able to move to you know local point of use agriculture uh water recycling to a large extent uh we're gonna create tremendous water abundance actually and i think that water scarcity will become a term uh which we will uh hopefully not see quite as as frequently and at the same time you've got to remember that the difference between electricity and water in terms of you know prosumption of water and recycling of water is the water is extremely heavy so it's very very hard to transport it and it costs a tremendous amount of energy so the water that thames water is actually losing in the pipeline just to use that example is being transported hundreds of miles in some cases from more water abundant areas in the lake district to the uk etc and so that energy is something you've got to think about as well in terms of decarbonization there's a tremendous opportunity which i would love to see somehow monetized in in making those more local water recycling schemes available and the savings in terms of co2 etc of of cutting out those very long pipelines of water which all the world uses um they are absolutely astronomical astronomical i mean what we're talking about in terms of small efficiencies here a bit more water reuse plugging some leaks has nothing to do with the scale of impact we could have by stopping transporting water in long distance and so i'm very uh very confident that very soon we're going to move to a very tangible impact in terms of agriculture and the way that water is being used i'm sure that there's going to be a lot of shake up of the marketplace it's being led by the consumer it's being led by communities who are taking hold of this kind of thing and i'm fairly confident that we to be talking about agriculture as using 70 of our water in the very very near future and it may not even be the major use of water anymore so let's walk to work towards that water abundance yeah thanks andrew and gayten you had um you had a comment you wanted to maybe we close with this depending on time go ahead please no i mean very quickly i think you know all of this cannot be um moved forward if the market doesn't signal its willingness to get on the innovation train um we had a very good example this morning with some local um so so that's good to have this kind of of signal it's how the market now can set the trends in order also for the investors you know back to what we are discussing here so that it gives confidence to the investors that the let's say the area is actually sustainable in the long run okay so you would be a proponent of adam smith's invisible hand or the market helps direct investments and investors not the other way around yeah i love water but i love economics as well okay yes i can tell yeah i mean to finish i i would say that uh we agreed about how funding maybe a nation because startups uh need a lot of funding but uh i actually think there's a lot of money i mean we have startups can opt for a range of funding sources including funding from traditional disease and impact funds now funding for our report uh tech startups is booming and for impact investment investing funds that receptor is particularly interesting given the magnitude of the environmental problem caused by it and then funding from large corporations i mean now through the year venture capital free arms or or through corporate sponsored accelerated programs mean for example pepsico team up with young meat to make plant-based snacks or compel the us food and snack corporation has a venture capital armed agri ventures partners investing in the future of food and agriculture and then uh with a traditional disease in large cooperation and public funding i mean at least in spain a number of public institutions provide a lot of funding to startups at concessional rates among these are uh anything else for example so so i really think there's money but you have to look for it and have a great project so so we can do finance for one of these three sources yep great thank you all for your for your inputs and your your excellent insights i wish the conversation could keep going on and i hope it's been inspirational to those watching us um i'm a big proponent of the public private partnerships just for the record the ppps i think there's a big big business to be done there and to include smaller startups and scale-ups as they're being called for this event so on on that note um patricia we will pass the floor back to you to find out who has won some of these famous awards thank you so much stuart for moderating this interesting session and to all the speakers for the insights yes i hope you are all excited because the moment has come to announce the winners of the innovative scale agriculture competition and as we mentioned earlier the winners of the competition will be granted with first prize 12 000 euros second prize 12 000 euros iniquity free cash to be used for scaling up their business and moreover there will be a special price of 30 000 euros for testing purposes this price will be granted by the solution a provider that better addresses the problem holder challenge which is sandukar so while we bring back all the startups of the competition eight organizations that are competing today i would like to welcome andreas christen too he's a project manager at the agriculture champions of zero cyprus and he will be the representative of the jury presenting the winners today hello andreas welcome back hello thank you very much so um we are going to wait for the companies or shall i start can you hear me yes sorry andreas we can hear you and you can feel free to take the floor the startups are already here with us so we are looking forward to hear the winners just a moment because i have a problem with the sound give me a minute please can you hear us andreas oh yeah can you hear me now yes we can hear you it's so good you can take the photo whenever you want all the startups right here sorry i had a problem with these little things okay so um [Music] we we as a jury uh we um we found it really hard to decide which solutions we'll get the the two first prizes um all the after the evaluation of the solutions and um the very interesting discussion we had um we concluded that all the solutions are promising and they have a lot of potential we assure that most of them they are going to succeed in the future but at the end we had to decide the winners of this competition so after a lot of uh thinking and a lot of discussion um we decided that um uh for the second prize the winner uh is uh synaphis with mr aries and [Music] we think that they presented their solution very well and also explained why they differ from other analytic solutions and we concluded that they get the second price and for the for the first price we choose a solution that was different than the others so uh the winner for the first prize is secaflor with mrs tadiana they offer a different solution and a different approach to the problem with a very good potential uh to the field um the idea looks very practical and well thought and yes we we are very happy uh that we participate in this and we had the chance to review the solutions and we are very happy with the result we are very happy with the second floor and synapse so addies would you like to speak before or should i say thank you to everyone i'd just like to thank everyone uh eit food and the jury for for their um for their participation and i'd also like to thank our mentor george karkatani who was who brought the uh economic uh aspect um to our solution that we didn't necessarily have so i think the mentorship was great the eit crew was great and uh thank you very much to the jury for uh your participation go ahead [Music] thank you to everyone thank you to the jury thank you to the iit food team which is really fantastic and i would like to say um a special thanks to to two and important elements in the in in this project our mentor sarah jordani who has been a real help this is an example of how how helping a company to understand and to grow and to go ahead thank you sarah and this is um the the special thanks is to my team they have they have work really really hard we have work all together we are thinking about the solution always for improving it thank you to the jury for taking the all the trust on us um thank you to everyone we are really happy and we go ahead always ahead thank you we thank you for your good work and we thank everybody else that participated thank you everyone congratulations to the winners and let's give the floor to fernando banyon so he can present the award okay hello hello everyone again um okay so for the special prize i have to say um that it has been very challenging uh for us it has been very very four five months uh super intense and interesting uh having meetings with each of the uh of the startups and understanding the value proposition we have we have been delighted to to see so many interesting ideas so many so much innovation um and it has been very hard to to to take a decision let's say at the end of the uh of these last weeks we were having two two companies in mind uh that adjusted the best to our to our let's say uh to our challenge i have to say that let's say the uh the parameters that we have used in order to take the final decision first of it first of them was let's say to prop to have a holistic solution that provided that let's say a hardware but also a software in order to understand what is the behavior of the water in in in our orchards another parameter that has been very much hello i think we have lost fernando i don't know if he has had any any internet issues but unfortunately he has been out but in any case i don't know if carmen galindo from eit food is available so maybe she can check the floor and give some final remarks and also make the announcement instead of fernando if he cannot join in the next few minutes [Music] yes we can we can give him a little bit the the space in the meantime i would like to do a few remarks and and again to to give the thank you to all the people that have been participating in the program and collaborating with us uh so uh to the mentors as i've mentioned at the beginning they've and as soon they have been doing a great job and and working hand-in-hand with the with the solution providers i hope we really hope that this collaboration and this this exchange of knowledge brings them to next level or open new opportunities so thank you again for all the mentors but also to the speakers um the sessions have been very interesting and and very aligned with with what we are looking to to do in the inner wise so so thank you for the for for collaborating with us and to participate in this session and i want to give a very special thank you to biathun we are our partners and also organizers of events in the shadows for bringing and putting together all these agenda together it was challenging and i think it was of a lot of interest to everyone and a little bit of um of a a reminder like you can stay tuned for future activities um as we will be having the water academies happening soon the 27th of a october on a water management agriculture and the second and the third of november for other sectors so please stay tuned and also we will be back um we will be back with more news and the results of what the work body of knowledge is working i see fernando is not back so he is having a connection issues so i will be doing the announcement instead of him he has very much nicer words to to say that he was a as far as i i know he was working on he was explaining how difficult was for him to to do this selection and i i'm aware of that he's been talking to all of you he has been um studying all the possibilities and finally he has uh made the decision based on what is more relevant for this stage at this moment for uh for a san luca and there you go the winner of the special prize 2010 is aggro analytics so i hope you can bring them stage yes congratulations anthony i i was faster fernando i'm sorry i live with the floor now i'm very sorry i don't know where he broke up i i really don't know where he broke up you were saying how interesting was it uh all the solutions and how challenging was for you to take me up your mind um and i did the closing remarks and now you are here on stage with antonella so you can tell her directly okay antonella very congratulations congratulations so for this award um i'm very sorry a problem with the connection i don't know why um i was just saying how did okay so fernando is not here you can you get is your turn and daniella you can tell us congratulations thank you so much and we are very happy as thanks for the opportunity to be here and thanks fernando to um to introduce us as a the the solution for the pro program holder and we want to give a special mention to our mentor because um consider antonio he has been helping in every step and he was impossible with him so thank you so much for all the support this month and we are very happy so we have a great team and we have a very good support here in the program and with our mentor and thanks to fernando too okay thank you very much antonella congratulations to all and patricia thank you and congratulations antonella fantastic prize it's been a pleasure from our side at revolve to facilitate this event today a fantastic lineup great speakers and it's been a wonderful collaboration as well with the eit food team so thank you to everyone thank you to the startups that have been collaborating very closely with us as well and the speakers and the members of the eurozone for making this a lively and interesting as well a q a with the startup so i'm very happy i hope that you enjoyed today's session and if you have not been able to join the full event um you can watch it on our youtube channel so it's there and and we can also share it with all the registered participants so you can watch it when you have more time but thank you have a good day and i hope that we can see you next time as well all the best

Channel: REVOLVE

Views: 18,184

Keywords: water, water scarcity, innovation, start up, infrastructure, Europe, European Union, EITFood, agrifood

Id: JbnZIA_Jfmw

Length: 226min 30sec (13590 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 04 2021