Capacity Building Workshop | 3–7 February 2025 | Milan, Italy
3 February 2025 Monday morning began with a warm welcome from the hosting institution, Politecnico di Milano, at Campus Leonardo. To break the ice, the group began with a group photo on the steps of the main staircase in the building. Professor Nicolò Aste, Rector’s Delegate for Relations with Africa, greeted the team with warm words of welcome, Professor Andrea Turolla and Enrico Tagliaferri took the group to the facilities. Andrea Remelli opened the first day with a quote from Joseph Stiglitz: “The most valuable resource in the world is knowledge, and sharing it drives progress.” In this spirit, Professor Luca Bascetta opened the knowledge exchange with an extremely insightful and innovative presentation on robotics in agriculture. In the afternoon, Professor Filippo Maria Renga from POLIMI’s Management Department gave exciting insights into sustainability and management aspects of agriculture. Interesting discussions made the complex topic very tangible.
4 February 2025 The second day started early in the morning at the train station Lambrate. There, the group caught the train to Piacenza from where a bus transferred everyone to the CERZOO Research Centre of the Università Catolica in Piacenza. Thanks to Professor Erminio Trevisi, the team got exciting insights into innovative agro-livestock farming to improve efficiency, animal welfare and sustainability of dairy cattle. Followed by an overview of the crop science related research, the carried everyone to Campus Cremona of the Politecnico di Milano. There, the group was split into two, gaining knowledge about robotics in agricultural and had a visit to a laboratory.
5 February 2025 The third day focussed on project-related discussions about management and the tasks facing the team in the final project phase. Intensive discussions led to productive planning of the open tasks. There was also a hybrid meeting with participants who could not be on site to evaluate and further discuss the progress and implementation to date. In addition, the POLIMI Ecology Group presented and discussed three key topics in the agricultural and urban environment, that demonstrate the potential of ecological models to tackle pressing environmental problems. This series was led by Professor Renate Casagrandi. Project member Professor Andrea Turolla provided insights into the possibilities of treating waste and by-products from the agri-food industry to overcome pollution problems and promote the valorisation of resources instead. The day ended with a joint social dinner, cultural exchange and exciting discussions.
6 February 2025 On the fourth day, the team moved to the Bovisa campus, where the POLIMI energy team is based. Here they visited the laboratories of the Energy Department and the campus. Professor Emanuela Colombo then gave a seminar to present the Comprehensive Energy Solution Planning (CESP) framework developed at POLIMI and to prepare the team for the subsequent practical workshop components.
7 February 2025 On the last day, Khaled Gad and Andrea Valese from POLIMI gave an exciting insight into modelling in the energy sector. This seminar focused on MicroGridsPy, an open-source optimisation tool based on Pyomo or modelling energy scaling and dispatch in micro-grids in remote locations.
Capacity Building Workshop | 21–25 October 2024 | Aachen, Germany
Project Half-Time | 31 July 2024
After the first half of the project, ImPreSSion has already had a significant impact and has received a strikingly positive response from various stakeholders.
Project Kick-Off Meeting | 13 February 2023
The official ImPreSSion kick-off meeting took place at the beginning of the project phase in February 2023. In the spirit of sustainability, the consortium agreed to hold the meeting as a video conference to reduce its carbon footprint and minimise travelling time. It also allowed a maximum number of people to attend the meeting. Thus, all project partners were present with at least two to three participants each to get to know each other. However, as it is likewise essential to meet the project staff in person, a physical grand assembly was held later in Milan, Italy, in November 2023. This meeting was combined with a planned workshop and thus represented a great added value so that carefully selected staff could travel reasonably. The goal of the project kick-off meeting was to discuss the project objectives, work packages, responsibilities, and upcoming activities, among others. Subsequently, the management structures, decision-making processes, communication tools, quality requirement, and overall time frame were intensely discussed.
