Urbana

Innovative collective awareness platform to strengthen urban agriculture

The Urbana project will create a technologically innovative platform to engage citizens in urban and peri-urban farming methods and build a bridge of knowledge exchange between Agricultural Advisors and citizens – Urban Cultivators. Urbana will act as a crowd-sourced repository of Do-It-Yourself (DIY) projects with step-by-step instructions regarding urban agriculture, smart balcony, greenhouses, community gardens farming techniques, etc. In particular, Urban Cultivators will be able to upload their DIY projects and navigate through the app to find other projects and ideas, while at the same time they will be able to make use of information and advice collected from Agricultural Advisors, crowdsourcing, IoT and social networks. On the other hand, Agricultural Advisors will be able to interact with the Urban Cultivators, consult them on how to build their own gardens and further promote their products and services. The users of the Urbana application will be able to follow a step-by-step guide to assemble a sensor and connect it to their cultivations, so as to retrieve real-time data on specific indicators. Furthermore, users will enjoy the utilization of gamification techniques that enhance the interaction between users by providing points, awards and badges to the ones who perform specific tasks. Urbana aims at the creative engagement of the city population with urban agriculture and the effective implementation and exchange of good cultivation practices. In that way, the project will succeed in raising awareness on the societal and environmental benefits of urban agriculture by fostering community collaboration, social inclusion and the collective awareness of the sustainability of the cities.

Role of DRAXIS:

Draxis will provide the design and the development of the platform and the structure that will manage the storage, analysis, scalability, security and presentation of the data.