GATES project. Overview

GATES, the acronym of “Applying GAming TEchnologies for training professionals in Smart Farming”, is a European Project, supported by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme, whose overall objective is to develop a serious game-based training platform, making use of different gaming technologies, in order to train professionals across the agricultural value chain on the use of Smart Farming Technology, thus allowing deploying its full economic and environmental potential in European agriculture.

The GATES gaming platform will be marketed as a white-label app within 1-2 years of project’s end (June 2019), with the possibility of being customized according to the needs of paying customer (SFT companies, universities and extension services /agricultural consultants). It will function either as a stand-alone or as a complementary tool to traditional training methods, covering a wide range of agricultural settings in order to cater for the needs of different professionals in the SFT value chain. An in-depth market analysis and a Business Plan will be conducted during the project for facilitating the entry of the GATES gaming platform in the market.


1
Gather potential customers and end-users needs and develop the game mechanics

2
Develop tools, functionalities and contents tailored to the needs of potential customers and end-users

3
Evolve a current game prototype (TRL4) into a serious game platform (TRL7) with significant market potential

4
Validate the serious game platform through the implementation of three “validated learning” cycles and integrate the end-users feedback into the development loop

5
Characterise the market and develop the most appropriate business model for the serious game platform aiming at product-market fit shortly after project implementation

1. GATES in figures

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2,5 years
Starting January 2017
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998.906,25€
Budget funded by Horizon 2020
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3 minimum
Viable Games developed
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3 validated
Learning cycles to test and evaluate the serious game
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170 target users
Validating the game (farmers, agronomy students, public advisors and private consultants, and SFT industry staff)
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1500 downloads
of the free version of the game
2. Why Smart Farming training?

Smart Farming Technologies has the potential to contribute to the wider goal of meeting the increasing demand for agricultural outputs while ensuring the sustainability of primary production, based on a more precise and resource-efficient approach to agricultural production

3. Why Serious Games?

The use of digital games and gamification has demonstrated potential to improve many aspects of how businesses provide training to staff, and communicate and engage with consumers.

In that context, the GATES PROJECT, through the development of a cross-platform (Desktop/Mobile/Web) serious gaming available for Android, iOS and Windows, will provide the farmer community, agronomical students, extension services and the SFT industry sales force an easy to use and understand gaming experience that will allow a first approach to the concept of SFT, their uses, available equipment and simulation on the adoption of such technologies.

2. Why Smart Farming training?
3. Why Serious Games?