Students Zacharias Mitzelos and Panagiotis-Stefanos Makos from the Department of Information and Communication Systems Engineering of the University of the Aegean, members of the EL/LAK Community of the Department, participated in the “Crowdhackathon #agriculture” hackathon, which took place from April 5-7, 2019, in Athens. The goal of this hackathon, with over 350 participants, was to create innovative, original pilot applications that improve existing e-services and processes of the Ministry of Rural Development and Food and its supervised bodies, as well as propose new value-added services for those involved in the agri-food sector. The students’ application won second place, out of 27 other teams.

The team from the Department focused on the issue that many landowners do not utilize their farmland, and in some cases, owning land can become a burden for the owner (taxes, basic maintenance, deforestation, etc.). On the other hand, there are farmers who need additional land to expand their production, test a new crop, or are newcomers to the field and do not wish or are unable to take the risk of purchasing land. The application developed by the student team aims to act as an “intermediary” that will connect these two parties, enabling the underutilized farmland to be used through a simple, low-risk, and low-cost transaction, benefiting both the tenant and the owner.