Agri Practices & Rural Development
Agricultural practices & Rural development: the role of assumptions in the innovation processes of Living Labs
BACKGROUND/HISTORY AND CONTEXT OF THE WORKSHOP
Bringing together the Rural LLs community, this workshop is hosted in collaboration with DG AGRI – Directorate-General for Agriculture and Rural Development at the European Commission. DG AGRI’s main interest in the LL methodology is on its capacity to trigger quick change in either:
- I. Agricultural practices (in the direction of greater sustainability); or
- II. Rural development (new business creation, development of services etc.). In this workshop, both of these branches are explored in a joint creative thinking workshop.
Through the Living Lab approach, we can create experimentation spaces in which farmers, in partnership with scientists, advisors and sometimes citizens, can test and develop new practices or new ways to manage their farms, or groups of farms that in the end are good for them but also better for the environment or for society. At the same time, we recognize the fact that in a workshop setting the discussion on the real needs of the users, and for that matter the points of view of the different stakeholders involved, are likely riddled with assumptions. Living Labs, as such, are constantly working closely together with these stakeholders in ensuring that their practices are based on what these stakeholders really think, feel, say and do – rather than basing their innovation processes on assumptions. In this workshop, we focus on the common pitfalls of assumptions, and the way in which they can divert our thinking in producing what is already expected by our common pre determined ideas.
MAIN AIM / OBJECTIVE
This workshop focuses on the issue of innovation being produced in great numbers on a daily basis, while only a few are truly addressing the right needs of the users – from consumers to practitioners. Our aim will be to try to share knowledge and experience from previous activities and to jointly create an approach for successful support towards radical innovation in agriculture.
Bringing together the practitioners – LLs working in the field – we are creating a space for sharing knowledge and expertise on innovation that is truly validated by end-users, leading to a much higher chance for market success. We truly believe that an innovation regardless of the field, requires tight development and fine tuning with (or sometimes by) end-users. By exploring the role of assumptions in this workshop, the importance of true engagement of the stakeholders involved is highlighted.
At the same time, through an assumption reversal exercise, the power of letting go of our predetermined ideas in a creative exercise aims to open up a new world of possibilities and ideas for future development.
wing participants to create unexpected solutions to solve the reversed assumption challenges.
EXPECTED OUTCOMES
Starting with the introductory presentations, participants are provided with an overview of different ongoing agricultural Living Lab projects, thematic focus areas of agri LLs and DG-AGRI, as well as posed with six questions that are current in the field.
Through the assumptions exercise, participants are given the opportunity to share their own experiences in the chosen topic, discussing assumptions that they have faced or even made throughout their journeys as Living Labs – learning from each other’s experiences.
The assumptions reversal exercise, where one assumption is chosen to be turned upside-down, will prompt creative thinking in creating unexpected and innovative ideas for solutions to solve the reversed assumption challenge. Often ideas emerging from such exercises have elements which can be taken up seriously – even if the initial prompt should be crazy, such creative exercises lead to unconventional ideas and more radical thinking towards radical innovation.
BRIEF OUTLINE / METHODOLOGY
Assumptions and assumptions reversal tools are a common element in many
methodologies such as Design Thinking, Agile, User-centered design, Foresight etc.
The session will begin with an introduction to the workshop and the different challenges that are posed at the 6 different tables. Each table will pose a question, based on a current ongoing project in the field:
Table 1: (Agricultural practices) PA4ALL
How can the introduction of new technologies to school children create new digital skills for future farmers?
Table 2: (Rural development) PA4ALL
How can we democratize agrifood innovation through reward crowdfunding?
Table 3: (Rural development) Guadalinfo
Table 4: (Rural development) LIVERUR
How we could plan, design, test and evaluate the active involvement of the main actors of the Quadruple Helix model (government, education, entrepreneurs, social community) in the whole value chain of the rural and peri-urban innovation?
Table 5: (Rural development) LIVERUR
How the emerging technologies (IoT, Big Data, AI, Blockchain, robotics, AR, VR etc.) influence, replaces or disrupts the existing practices in the rural (circular and shared) economy by the support of the Living Lab instrument?
Table 6: (Agricultural practices) Wellant
How can we upgrade the cross sectoral cooperation between 4 helix regarding transdisciplinary challenges on agriculture/water /livebale cities to viable bussiness cases
Table 7: (Agricultural practices) Wellant
How do we create the transit path from governmental policy to actual change in behavior among citizens with regard to climate and sustainability in agriculture?
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The assumption exercise will collect experiences and assumptions based on the questions posed at each table, utilizing a quadruple helix stakeholder template that indicates a color for each stakeholder type – ensuring that assumptions are considered from the various points of view.
The assumption reversal exercise that follows will prompt creative thinking in allowing participants to create unexpected solutions to solve the reversed assumption challenges.
LINKS
PA4ALL
Living Lab
Workshop Facilitators
Milica Trajković
Certified PMI Project Manager
Milica Trajković
Certified PMI Project ManagerMs. Milica Trajkovic is a certified PMI project manager, experienced in EU funded projects focused on Digital Agriculture and development of ICTs for AgriFood value chain. For the last five years she has been equally involved in numerous proposals preparation (from idea to design and proposal formulation) as well as projects’ implementation. Constant managing of multiple projects resulted in two main specializations – i) liaison between project requests and partners’ needs and Institute’s expertise and resources dedicated to implementation of project tasks; ii) efficient implementation of overall project strategy and assuring sub-projects and pilots are executing pre-defined tasks and activities within time, budget and quality constraints. At the same time, she deeply believes that people are the most valuable asset a company can have. Hence, Milica is very passionate about training and development activities tailored to Institute’s employees needs she is leading. In parallel, Milica is an Operations Manager in Precision Agriculture Living Lab (PA4ALL), where she works on broadening the relations with agricultural producers and maintaining cross-fertilization process between agricultural and ICT industry.
Grigoris Chatzikostas
Business Developer
Grigoris Chatzikostas
Business DeveloperMr. Grigoris Chatzikostas is a Business Developer in the field of advanced ICT technologies for the agrifood sector. As Head of the Business Development Department of BioSense, he is building the relationships of the Institute with industry and academia across Europe. His past experience in business consulting and IT start-ups has played a key role in developing the aggressive entrepreneurial mentality of BioSense as a results-driven Center of Excellence. As an expert in European projects, Grigoris is managing multi-national and cross-sectoral consortia, writing proposals for EU funding and coordinating large-scale projects that promote tech-enabled entrepreneurship in the agrifood sector. In the past 15 years he has managed projects exceeding the total value of 95 M EUR. As an engaging public speaker and trainer, he makes complex subjects related to EU funding and technologies accessible and easy to understand. He also offers mentoring and strategic consulting to a small number of carefully selected companies that are aligned with his interests.
Ines Vaittinen
International Project Manager
Ines Vaittinen
International Project ManagerInes is an International Project Manager and Developer at ENoLL. She has completed her Master’s degree studies in International Design Business Management at Aalto University and also has a background in Architecture (BSc from Politecnico di Milano). Her international background includes studying and working across 6 different countries. Professionally she has experience from Corporate Innovation (eg. Design Thinking, Strategic Innovation) and project work on user-centered design solutions for corporate clients in the field of service design, experience design and behavior design. Ines is currently specializing in co-creation techniques, tools and methodologies. Her main responsibilities at ENoLL include project management of EU-MACS, iSCAPE and SISCODE projects, performing a task leading role in UNaLab project as well as support on the U4IOT project, while lending her design-focused expertise across the board of projects and activities at ENoLL. Ines is responsible for the Learning Lab, a tailored training programme as well as consultancy offerings to learn more about Living Labs.
Luis Navarro López
Director General
Luis Navarro López
Director GeneralLuis is a telecom engineer, with more than 15 years of experience in aligning technology and social needs. Managing Director at the Guadalinfo Living Lab network, composed of more than 800 living Labs located in all the municipalities under 20.000 inhabitants all over Andalusia, coordinating an expert group responsible of the LL network support and the Social Innovation and ICTs regional and international strategies, from a Smart Rural perspective. Especially active and interested in the human centered environment, expert on gamification, social innovation, and impact assessment methodologies. Currently involved in the regional certification of Digital Competencies (based on DIGCOMP) and the development of entrepreneurship competencies strategies (based on ENTRECOMP). Responsible of the international affairs with a long track of international projects development. Passionate about intelligent crowd tendencies, open innovation, open science and living labs methodologies and experiences. Long research experience on the optical communications field. At the moment involved in social innovation, smart rural and internationalization strategies Especially active and interested in the human centered environment, expert on gamification, social innovation, crowdfunding and impact assessment methodologies. Responsible of the international affairs with a long track of projects development. Passionate about intelligent crowd tendencies, open innovation and co-creation methodologies
