Update e-Agriculture Learning Activity on drones - week 1

Beginning Monday the 16th of October, e-Agriculture received 670 participants  of the e-Agriculture learning activity on the use of drones in agriculture. On each respective day of this activity content is added and made available and can be accessed here. You can download the full programme for a global overview  here. 

In review so far

On Monday, October 16th we opened the activity with a general introduction and a live opening webinar, which was meant to give more information on how the activity is organized. The recording of the live webinar is available here. An experience capitalization exercise has been opened for participants to share experiences and submit them online. We are still collecting contributions and the results are available on this page. 

Tuesday, October 17th  was dedicated to an introduction to drones and their technology. A recorded presentation was delivered by  Gerard Sylvester from FAO, this presentation introduced drones, provided some useful definitions, presented different types of drones and overviewed possible equipment associated with drones.

The focus on Wednesday, October 18th and Thursday, October 19th was on the use of drones in agriculture and rural development, with interesting articles and use cases in the use of drones in specific thematic areas, such as crop mapping, conservation, fisheries, land mapping, disaster risk reduction, etc. On Thursday there was also a live webinar on multispectral sensors and analytics in agriculture with Matthew Barre from Slantrange (recording will be made available soon).

To close the first week, Friday 20 October will focus on the use of drones for forestry and will include a live webinar with Maricarmen Ruiz from FAO Panama on community monitoring of forests in Indigenous territories in Panama. 

To join the live webinar which will be at 2 PM UTC / 4PM Central European Summer Time use the following Adobe Connect link.

Next week

The second week will kick off on Monday 23 October with the findings from the universities such as the articles on ongoing research from KU Leuven and Twente University. There will also be  recorded presentations from Twente University on the its4land project and the use of drones for land administration and property rights. On Tuesday 24 October we will focus on private sector role and innovations with a live webinar with Jose Marchetti from SenseFly and Felix Moser from Mosersolutions and on Wednesday 25 October we will share the participants experiences with a Live Participants Panel where participants get the opportunity to share their experience in a live session. There will also be a Peer assist where participants can post their challenges or problems and find a peer to assist participants among the 670 subscribers. Thursday 26 October will be dedicated to regulations, privacy and safety with a recorded presentation on drone regulations called "Challenges and ways forward" by Giacomo Rambaldi from CTA. On Friday 27 October we will close the learning activity with the day dedicated to "Drones in humanitarian action": A live webinar with Haidar Baqir from WFP and Patrick Meier from WeRobotics will be organized. 

In case you would like to receive a daily update, you can still register here.

Overview of upcoming live sessions: 

• Friday 20 October 2PM UTC: Community monitoring of forests with drones. Click here to access the  room at the time of the webinar. 
• Tuesday 24 October 2PM UTC: Sensefly and Mosersolutions. Click here to access the room at the time of the webinar. 
• Wednesday 25 October 2PM UTC: Participants Panel. Click here to access the room at the time of the webinar. 
• Friday 27 October 2PM UTC: Drones in humanitarian action. Click here to access the room at the time of the webinar. 

Please connect on the day and time of the live webinar and enter the virtual meeting room by loggin in as a guest. 

Hope you can join us to discuss this interesting topic.