In addition to SmartAgriFood funding, SMEs may avail of collaboration with agricultural experts through ICT–AGRI.
SMEs developing agricultural application or services under SmartAgriFood can choose to add value to their projects by collaborating with agricultural experts from the same or another member states. The ICT–AGRI experts must be selected from the ICT-AGRI database which can be accessed once you have registered as a user on the ICT-AGRI site.
The ICT–AGRI experts will in most cases be employed by an organisation or research institute which operates at a national level within their country. The purpose of partnering with an ICT-AGRI experts is to facilitate the application or service development in a new market or country and increase the potential of marketing across borders. ICT-AGRI experts can thus help SMEs to have their application or service tested in at least two countries, as required.
The ICT–AGRI experts can work with the SMEs across a range of areas including:
- Modifications and documentation of decision support systems and other knowledge based systems for enabling the systems to be implemented in smart applications or services.
- Modifications of data bases for enabling data sharing within an open marketplace for agricultural ICT
- Development of local adaptions of smart applications or services
- End user trials of smart applications or services
Some ICT-AGRI countries have provided funding for expert advice to SMEs making applications in SmartAgriFood. The ICT-AGRI funding goes specifically towards meeting the personnel costs of the ICT-AGRI expert working in partnership with the SME, making the opportunity to expand into new countries more cost effective.
ICT-AGRI partners from all other countries are offering assistance to SMEs for finding agricultural partners who can participate with own funding.