Agricultural Sector, ICT Innovations and the Commons - Towards Building Synergies

netCommons' partners Athens University of Economics and Business and NetHood, in close collaboration with Sarantaporo.gr non-profit organization, started a series of participatory design workshops in the area of Sarantaporo in order to reveal critical challenges faced by the agricultural sector in the area and explore possible opportunities for the design of innovative cooperative actions around agricultural production with the support of new technologies and common infrastructures like community wireless networks.

The first (closed) event of this series, a two-day symposium addressed the following three questions:

1. What are the biggest and most common problems, agricultural sector faces today? Which are the opportunities and which the hurdles for the founding of modern cooperative structures?
2. What could be the contribution of modern ICT solutions, and especially those based on the principles of commoning, and which are the suitable strategies and collaboration for this contribution to truly benefit the local society? 
3. How could the collaboration between the agricultural sector, the ommons ecosystem and social entrepreneurs, ICT-based innovative businesses, academics & researchers, and local authorities, lead to generized cooperative action that combine the traditional agriculture cooperatives with the cooperative networking infrastructures?

The symposium is structured around the parallel description of existing problems faced by the local professionals, and possible solutions that could be developed by researchers and/or innovative businesses in the ICT sector, in the light of the key principles of cooperation and commoning.

Organizing team
Georgios Klissiaris (AUEB, Sarantaporo.gr), Vassilis Chrysos (AUEB, Sarantaporo.gr),  Panayotis Antoniadis Antoniadis (NetHood), Panagiota Micholia (AUEB), Merkouris Karaliopoulos (AUEB)

Venue
Athanasios Minas Winery Facilities, Milea village, Sarantaporo area

Program

Saturday, November 26, 2016
09:30 - 10:00 Registration
10:00 - 11:00 Introductory statements by all participants, the objectives of the symposium
11:00 - 11:15 Coffee break
11:15 - 13:15 Agricultural sector: needs, problems, expectations, possibilities
13:15 - 14:15 Lunch and discussion
14:15 - 16:00 Information and communication technologies: solutions, applications, tools
16:00 - 16:15 Coffee break
16:15 - 17:45 Commons, social entrepreneurship, cooperatives: alternative forms of organization
17:45 - 18:00 Coffee break
18:00 - 19:00 Summary, conclusions, next steps  

Sunday, November 27, 2016  
10:00 - 11:00 Guided visit at the Sarantaporo village
11:00 - 13:00 Guided tour of villages in the coverage area of the Sarantaporo.gr Community Network
13:00 - 15:00 Lunch at Kokkinopilos village  

List of participants  

Agricultural sector

Athanasios Minas (Farmer, wine maker)
Nikos Valiotis (Farmer & baker)
Tasos Antoniou (Breeder & farmer)
Panayotis Panayotou (President of Milea village community)
Achileas Vaitsis (Farmer, Sarantaporo.gr)
George Tsanousas (Breeder)

The commons      

Antonis Broumas (Sarantaporo.gr)
Makis Raptis (Sarantaporo.gr)
George Klissiaris (Sarantaporo.gr)
Panayotis Antoniadis (NetHood, Zurich)
Nikos Kourtzis (Connectivity for Refugees Coordinator, UNHCR Greece)

Industry

Fotis Chatzipapadopoulos (Gaia Epicheirein SA)
Vasilis Chrysos (Ex Machina, Sarantaporo.gr)
Paul Peridis (Impact Hub Athens)

Academics & Researchers

Vasilis Niaros (P2P Lab)
Vasilis Vlachos (ΤΕΙ Θεσσαλίας)
Merkourios Karaliopoulos (AUEB)
Aris Pilichos (AUEB)

* The original workshop description and invitation were written in Greek and this is a shortened translation of the main points.