The Research Data Alliance (RDA) Interest Group on Agricultural Data (IGAD) meeting focusing on IGAD/RDA : Sharing Experiences and Creating Digital Dialogues, which was set to be held in Rome (Italy) in April 2020 will now take place as a virtual meeting beginning today, May 25 to May 28.  The virtual meeting will provide an online platform to continue to build upon collaborations, knowledge sharing and developing innovations with activities including panel sessions, group discussions and presentations. 

To kickoff the week-long event, Dr. Andy Jarvis, Associate Director General of the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT (a CGIAR Center) will give a Keynote presentation today, May 25 at 16:00 to 17:00 CEST. Register for today's keynote here. 

Digital Agriculture for the Other Half 

Moving agricultural research into the digital era requires novel infrastructure, tools and collaborations with data scientists to realize the benefits of data sharing and reuse. In order to drive the digital revolution forward, it is critical that we avoid further widening the digital divide, and design digital agriculture interventions to be inclusive for farming throughout the world.

About the Speaker

Dr. Andy Jarvis is the Associate Director General of the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT (a CGIAR Center), based in Cali, Colombia. Dr. Jarvis has been working for 20 years on scientific research in developing countries to support the goals of alleviating poverty and building a sustainable food future. His research has focused on the use of spatial analysis and environmental modeling to address issues such as agricultural biodiversity conservation, adaptation to climate change, and digital agriculture.

Registration 

Registration for the week-long virtual meeting is still available. The full schedule of presentations and registration links for the virtual meeting are available at https://bit.ly/2AzocoO. Each day has one or two sessions - one in the morning and another one in the afternoon Central European Summer Time (CEST) - with 60 to 90 minutes of presentations. There are  individual registration links for each virtual session. Interested participants are encouraged to register for multiple sessions based on interests and needs. 

The virtual event will include the following sessions:

• Opening Session 16:00 to 17:00 CEST - Register
• Semantics 16:00 to 17:30 CEST - Register
• Europe/Asia 10:00 to 11:45 CEST - Register
• Americas (draft, last details will follow this afternoon) 16:00  to 17:30 CEST - Registration
• Africa 10:00 to 11:30 CEST - Register
• Closure session 16:00 to 17:00 CEST - Register

If you have any comments or suggestions please contact to us at [email protected].

About IGAD

One of IGAD’s main roles is to serve as a platform that leads to the creation of domain-specific Working Groups. To date, successful Working Groups (WGs) have been formed under IGAD, these are: Wheat Data Interoperability, Rice Data Interoperability, AgriSemantics and Capacity Development for Agricultural Data WGs. The groups play a key role in delivering Research Data Alliance’s (RDA) recommendations and good practices with regard to Agricultural Data Interoperability. Formed in 2013, since its inception the Interest Group on Agricultural Data (IGAD) has grown in community strength to over 200 members, becoming one of the RDA’s most prominent Thematic Groups.

Co-chairs of the Interest Group on Agriculture Data (IGAD), for the IGAD Task Force 2020:

Patricia Rocha Bello Bertin (EMBRAPA, Brazil)

Cynthia Parr (National Agricultural Library. USDA Agricultural Research Service, US)

Imma Subirats Coll (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Italy)