About

In South Africa, Living Labs are community-based technology hubs that leverage local resources, knowledge, and talent to address local challenges. They emphasize community involvement as both creators and beneficiaries of innovation, leading to greater adoption of solutions within the surrounding area. These labs often focus on ICT-related products and services, capacity building, and community empowerment.
Here’s a more detailed look:
Core Concept:
Living Labs in South Africa are not just about technology; they are about using technology to solve real-world problems within communities.
They are characterized by a focus on co-creation and user involvement, meaning community members actively participate in the design and implementation of solutions.
The aim is to create sustainable and impactful solutions that benefit the community and contribute to its development.
Key Features:
Community Focus:
Living Labs are deeply rooted in the specific needs and context of the communities they serve.
Multi-Stakeholder Engagement:
They bring together various actors, including community members, researchers, businesses, and government, to collaborate on solutions.
Emphasis on Capacity Building:
Many Living Labs focus on providing training and skills development to community members, empowering them to participate in the innovation process and contribute to their own development.
Experimentation and Testing:
They provide a real-world environment for testing and refining new technologies and solutions, ensuring they are practical and relevant.

Sign up to digitize your farm

Use our artificial intelligence-based technology tools to identify possible issues and monitor your farm with our high-resolution satellite imagery that is updated every five days. Benefits include: pin-point areas where your crop or pasture is under-performing, monitor and track your trials and high-value crops, save time and money by targeting you plant tissue and soil tests to inform decisions like fertilizer application and irrigation.

Smart livestock farming aims to achieve more productive, efficient, and sustainable farm operations based on the effective use of digital technologies The largest potential lies in individual animal monitoring and analysis, which is referred to as precision livestock farming (PLF). In PLF, tools and sensors are used to continuously and automatically monitor key performance indicators of livestock in the areas of animal health, productivity, and environmental load

Determine the optimal conditions for plant growth

Use field and remote sensing to continuously monitor your crops

Use technology to help maximize the cost: benefit ration for plant nutrients, crop protection treatments, and irrigation.

Food production and agriculture underpin human society and the sector faces a remorseless need to increase productivity. Due to population growth, shrinking of arable land and climate change, the sector is expected to face significant changes. The costs associated with agriculture as a result of increased environmental demands and other regulations are gaining pace and policy makers are supporting the agriculture sector and its transformation on a national and European level. Efficient and sustainable farming solutions can drive this transformation by increasing productivity while at the same time reducing costs, waste and environmental impact.

The integration of space-based and terrestrial systems has proved very effective in this respect. There is an increasing opportunity for customised solutions and innovative services that combine yield optimisation with a lessening of environmental impact, notably through precision farming and enhanced irrigation management that reduces the use of pesticides and water.

Precision farming involves the measuring and monitoring of inputs including fertilisers, pesticides, water resources, labour and machine hours. The market was worth an estimated USD 4 billion in 2018 and is expected to grow at around 15% CAGR from 2019 to 2025. The Internet of Things (IoT) and automation are already playing a key role and adoption of such technologies is expected to increase. Space assets such as satellite communications can provide a secure means of data transmission and can be complemented with Earth observation to monitor soil moisture or predict weather/environmental events that could affect the yield. Satellite navigation plays an important role for real-time tracking and tracing of farm assets which can help calculate optimal routes for (autonomous) tractors maximising efficiency and the utilisation of the machinery. The tracking of farm assets is not just limited to machinery but can also be applied to tracking of livestock for virtual fencing, and  tracking of animal fertility or animal protection purposes.

The space environment, and in particular the effects of microgravity and cosmic radiation among other harsh conditions, provide also a unique laboratory for the study of plant growth, cultivation, seed storage and plant biology in generally. Studying crops under these conditions can help the industry to improve methodologies for cultivation of plants under harsh conditions and in closed environments, providing valuable solutions for novel agricultural approaches for food production.

It can also complement national agricultural statistics by supporting the optimisation of supply chains and forecasting future food supply through crop yield analysis and estimations (e.g. health, nutrients and maturity).

The increase in extreme climate events such as floods, drought and frosts are severely affecting agricultural production and food security. Farmers, national governing bodies and, insurance companies are affected by this and therefore can benefit from airborne and satellite imagery to help further understand the effects of climate change on agricultural production and investigate climate-neutral practices.