The Copernicus program is today at a cornerstone: •The Sentinel satellites are being deployed. Their images, associated with Third Party missions’ data are being used for delivering Copernicus core services results (at global, European, and regional levels). •The European structures (EEA, ECMWF, EMSA , etc.) and the scientific community are starting to use operationally these data and the results for a better knowledge and understanding of the key land-cover stakes and environmental monitoring. But, the regional actors who are responsible for managing (at least partially) land-cover and natural resources policies have still difficulties to get access to these data and information, and moreover are not in position to combine them with their existing geo-information systems. A group of five SMEs (TerraNIS, Spacebel, Planetek, Terraspatium and Sertit), supported by a consulting firm specialized in Space market innovation and organization (Cap High Tech), are proposing to provide the regional institutional and commercial users with operational information services. These services will take the highest benefit from Copernicus outputs, for territory monitoring and management. These SMEs have decided to put in common their complementary skills and products, in the frame of a dedicated association (called EUGENIUS). They will implement “regional hubs” (Geo-information platforms) building the first instance of the “EUGENIUS network”. These regional hubs shall deliver services in the following domains: •Urbanization monitoring and management (densification, preservation of rural and “green” areas, transportation means, etc.) •Agriculture areas and activities (crop monitoring, crop identification and classification, potential yield assessment, water resources and irrigation, etc.) •Forest monitoring (surfaces, trees species classification, exploitation status, etc.) •assessing and monitoring some natural risks at regional levels (flooding, landslides and water quality)

NADiRA aims to incorporate Copernicus, other Earth Observation products and in-situ IoT devices into mAgriTM, an existing value chain orchestration platform connecting, in smallholder contract farming, producers with banks, insurers, input providers and agro-industries to control risks and improve the productivity, security, and welfare of tens of thousands of African farmers. By industrializing EO products , NADiRA reduces mAgriTM’s operating costs, while increasing the timeliness, granularity and reach of its following services: (1) Agricultural investment risk mapping, to reduce finance institutions cash-out and increase availability of input credit to smallholders, (2) More robust, affordable agricultural insurance contracts, to reduce persistent climate risk, (3) Improved smallholder tactical management of crop nutrient deficiencies and post-harvest losses to increase productivity, harvest quality and income. NADiRA demonstrates, on a large market scale, the economic and commercial viability of the combination of EO, IoT and mobile technology and its leverage on the new business model implemented by MANOBI, Swiss Re, credit and insurance institutions and agro-industries to improve smallholder productivity. Four pilots run in parallel in Senegal and Nigeria targets (i) different crop types and production systems (irrigated rice, rainfed peanuts, maize and sorghum) in (ii) 10 crop campaigns (4 irrigated, 3 rainfed) and (iii) various production environments and management practices. This demonstration sustains the development of a business plan with financial objectives and an associated roadmap to capture 30% of the addressable market in Africa. The outreach actions benefits from the communications channels of the NADiRA partners, active in Africa (MANOBI, Swiss Re, ICRISAT, local banks and farmers associations), in Europe (SPACEBEL, University of Liège, Viveris and EUGENIUS association) and Asia (ICRISAT). A Copernicus Relay will be established in West Africa.

The data intensive target sector selected for the DataBio project is the Data-Driven Bioeconomy, focusing in production of best possible raw materials from agriculture, forestry and fishery/aquaculture for the bioeconomy industry to produce food, energy and biomaterials taking into account also various responsibility and sustainability issues. DataBio proposes to deploy a state of the art, big data platform “on top of the existing partners’ infrastructure and solutions - the Big DATABIO Platform.The work will be continuous cooperation of experts from end user and technology provider companies, from bioeconomy and technology research institutes, and of other partners. In the pilots also associated partners and other stakeholders will be actively involved. The selected pilots and concepts will be transformed to pilot implementations utilizing co-innovative methods and tools where the bioeconomy sector end user experts and other stakeholders will give input to the user and sector domain understanding for the requirements specifications for ICT, Big Data and Earth Observation experts and for other solution providers in the consortium. Based on the preparation and requirement specifications work the pilots are implemented utilizing and selecting the best suitable market ready or almost market ready Big Data and Earth Observation methods, technologies, tools and services to be integrated to the common Big DATABIO Platform. During the pilots the close cooperation continues and feedback from the bioeconomy sector user companies will be utilized in the technical and methodological upgrades to pilot implementations. Based on the pilot results and the new solutions also new business opportunities are expected. In addition during the pilots the end user utilizers are participating trainings to learn how to use the solutions and developers also outside the consortium will be activated in the Hackathons to design and develop new tools, services and application for the platform.