26th MARS Conference held in Barcelona 2022
November 21, 2022
October had been a busy month for DIONE partners. DIONE project has now reached its final phase, partners were eagerly awaiting to show the results of a successful cooperation for the last 34 months, closing in on their KPIs, formatting the technical reports and preparing for the final review meeting. The spirits were high after recent meetings where positive financial figures had come up and surveys showed good results. The majority of the partners made their journey to Athens, where the final review took place.
DIONE Final review meeting took place in Athens, November the 7th at Amarilia hotel in the south of the city. Official project reviewers from the European Commission welcomed the presentations from all DIONE partners. The session was opened by Angelos Amditis, Research and Development Director in the Institute of Communication and Computer Systems of NTUA and member of its Board of Directors, presenting DIONE concept at a glance together with the key achievements.
During the first part of the review meeting, all the work packages were presented in chronological order by the work package leaders. The project management overall progress report was given by DIONE project manager, Valantis Tsiakos (ICCS). The presentation covered the main topics on Administrative & Financial management, Technical Management, Quality and risk management, Data management, GDPR, Legal and Ethical Issues. The work done under the WP2 was presented by Aleksandar Sekulić from GILAB, focused on DIONE EO-based Toolbox User-Driven Design, Deployment and Customisation providing details on Incremental Toolbox components integration and end-product customization. Tools for Sentinel Hub data extraction and maps of crop-type and non-productive EFAS were presented under WP3 by Nejc Vesel from SINERGISE focusing on EO based area monitoring, super resolution modelling and data fusion, with accompanying presentation of the drone platform and data tenure. Under WP4, Farmers’ tools for complementing EO-data, Kostas Karyotis from i-BEC gave a short recap about miniaturised VNIR spectrometers, geotagged photos framework and data pre-processing and handling. The presentation further focused on processing with historical and open EO data and generation of soil properties observations and maps. DIONE Green Accountability toolbox was presented under WP5 by Giorgos Gkotsis from CORE giving an overview of the Compliance monitoring tool and DIONE Environmental Performance Tool & visualization component. Aušrius Kučinskas from NPA presented DIONE Pilot Demonstrations and Impact Assessment under WP6, giving an overview of DIONE pilots both in Lithuania and Cyprus as well analysis of the results from DIONE Toolbox evaluation. Finally, under WP7, Jelena Đokić from INOSENS presented Dissemination, Exploitation and Communication of DIONE including the Dissemination and communication plan, Promotional and outreach activities, DIONE Advisory Board and Exploitation, Business Plan and IP Management.
A closer inspection of the Exploitation and business aspects followed in the afternoon session, presented by Jelena Đokić (INO) with participation from the EC and the whole consortium, addressing the full scope of the DIONE Toolbox exploitation paths. The discussion included reviewing the exploitable assets, market outlook, financial and cost benefit analysis and a go to market strategy. A carousel of DIONE demo components and demos displayed the particularities of developed tools, bringing closer the user interface and the variety of available options. The Geotagged Photos Framework and the Soil Scanning System were presented in videos and explained closer by partners from ICCS and i-BEC, Valantis Tsiakos and Kostas Karyotis. Live demo presentations of the Compliance and Environmental Performance tools ensued by partners from CAPO and CORE, Eftychios Zintilas and Savvas Georgiades, and Giorgos Gkotsis.
Each of the presentations was followed by a Questions and Answers part during which the reviewers offered their support and suggestions for further development. The questions revealed different aspects, more strengths than shortcomings of the developed solutions, but most importantly, spurred a lively discussion offering insights and comments to implement in the technical reports. The cooperation prospects in the post-project period and the uptake of key results through DIONE Alliance were especially praised by the reviewers, and in the spirit of positive future outlook and market ready products, the official meeting drew to an end.
