Information and Communication Technologies for Agriculture—Theme IV: Actions

​Dionysis Bochtis works on the field of Systems Engineering for agricultural production under enhanced ICT, automation, and robotics technologies. His Research/Academic track-record includes positions such as: Director of the Institute for Bio-economy and Agri-technology (IBO / CERTH); Professor (Agri-Robotics) University of Lincoln, UK, and Senior Scientist (Operations Management), Aarhus University, Denmark. He is the founder of the agri-tech private company: farmB Digital Agriculture. Simon Pearson is Professor of Agricultural Technology at the University of Lincoln, UK, and the Founding Director of the Lincoln Institute of Agri-Food Technology (LIAT).  His research area includes A diverse range of agri-technology applications including robotic systems, automation, energy control and management, food safety systems, and novel crop development. He run also positions such as Produce Technologists and Managing Director In various private sector companies.  Maria Lampridi is a Mechanical Engineer focusing, through her MSc and PhD studies, on Environmental Management and Sustainability. Main research areas include life cycle assessment of agricultural production systems and sustainability assessment of advanced agri-technologies as parts of these systems. Currently she is a Research Assistant in the Institute of Bio-economy and Agri-technology (iBO) of the Center for Research and Technology Hellas (CERTH). Vasso Marinoudi works in Socio-technology Science (Bachelor’s degree Studies: American College of Greece – DEREE, Department of Sociology) focusing on the assessment of digitalization and robotization in agricultural production in terms of social sustainability and human-technology interaction (PhD’s Studies. Lincoln Institute for Agri-Food Technologies, Lincoln University). She is the Vice-CEO at Engineers for Business (EfB) S/A and is involved in various research projects at the R&D department of the company.Panos M. Pardalos serves as distinguished professor of industrial and systems engineering at the University of Florida. Additionally, he is the Paul and Heidi Brown Preeminent Professor of industrial and systems engineering. Professor Pardalos is also an affiliated faculty member of the computer and information science department, the Hellenic Studies Center, and the biomedical engineering program. Additionally, he serves as the director of the Center for Applied Optimization. Professor Pardalos is a world leading expert in global and combinatorial optimization. His recent research interests include network design problems, optimization in telecommunications, ecommerce, data mining, biomedical applications, and massive computing. Panos Pardalos is a prolific author who lectures all over the world. He is the recipient of a multitude of fellowships and awards,the most recent of which is the Humboldt Research Award (2018).

• Section I: Agriculture digital transformation and sustainability.- Towards Sustainable Agriculture: Challenges from the transition to the new digital era (Lampridi).- Sustainability in a Digital Farming Era: A Cyber-Physical Analysis Approach for Drone Applications in Agriculture 4.0 (Tsolakis).- Digital technologies in the context of energy:  Focus on the developing world agriculture (Kyriakarakos).- A Circular Precision Farming System towards the optimization of dairy value-chains (Lampridi).- An analysis of safety and health issues in agriculture towards work automation (Benos).- Section IΙ: Agriculture digital transfor-mation around the world.- Smart farming as a game-changer for regional-spatial planning (Agostini).- Agriculture in Latin America: recent advances and food demands by 2050 (Soria-Ruiz).- The development opportunities of agri-food farms with digital transformation (Sturiale).- Precision Agriculture’s Economic Benefits in Greece: An Exploratory Statistical Analysis (Falaras).- Section III: Diffusion of agriculture digital   transformation.- AI-based Chatbot System Integration to a Social Media Platform for Controlling IoT Devices in Smart Agriculture Facilities (Symeonaki).- IT in Education: Developing an online course (S. Zazueta).- Assisting DIY Agricultural Robots towards Their First Real-World Missions (Loukatos).- Evaluation of spray coverage and other spraying characteristics from ground and aerial sprayers (drones - UAVs) used in a high-density planting olive groves (Gertsis).- Predictive model for estimating the impact of technical issues on consumers interaction in agri-logistics websites (P. Sakas).