Enhancing Competitiveness, Resilience and Sustainability of Remote Farming, Forestry and Rural Areas through Holistic Assessment of Smart XG, Last-mile and Edge Solutions’ Gains
Duration: 01/09/2022 – 31/08/2025
Total Funding: € 4,886,149
Overview
Emerging trends such as teleworking, e-commerce, and the accelerated digitalisation prompted by the Covid-19 pandemic have further exposed deep-rooted digital inequalities, supply chain vulnerabilities, and limited economic opportunities in rural and coastal areas. These factors hinder the resilience, competitiveness, and long-term prosperity of such communities, which are often among the most vulnerable. Enhancing their capacity to participate in and benefit from the green and digital transitions is essential. However, delivering equitable access to services, innovation ecosystems, and opportunities remains complex due to the highly diverse needs, geographical conditions, and socio-economic realities across different rural and coastal regions.
XGain supports sustainable, balanced, and inclusive development of rural, coastal and urban areas by providing stakeholders with access to a comprehensive inventory of smart XG, last-mile connectivity and edge computing solutions, alongside related assessment methods. The core ambition of XGain was to develop a cost-effective and environmentally friendly ecosystem of technologies, to assess the socio-economic and environmental effects related to them and develop innovative business models in accordance with the performed assessments, integrated in a Knowledge Facilitation Tool indented for non-scientists.
Objectives
Empower public participation and multi-actor approach in transition towards enhanced sustainability design, social acceptance and fair solutions, through the interactive identification of end users’ needs and co-creation of XGain system and Use Cases requirements.
Design and deliver a user-centric, interoperable and easy-to-use knowledge facilitation tool, for supporting actors of rural and coastal communities in their decision-making process on internet connectivity and edge technology options with appropriate operational business models.
Develop, establish and facilitate the selection of the most appropriate innovative business models that will include systemic level and cross-sectoral approaches.
Validate the outcome of the Knowledge Facilitation Tool in 6 unique fields with different technical, environmental, societal and economical structures and needs.
Accelerate the adoption of XGain solutions by the wider community, and ensure impact maximisation to the realisation of sustainable, balanced and inclusive development of rural areas’ vision.
eBOS Role in the Project
In XGain, eBOS led the digitalisation and integration of the Knowledge Facilitation Tool, based on the predefined architecture and system requirements. Using an iterative integration approach, it ensured technical collaboration, interoperability, and scalability of the system components. eBOS also led the design and implementation of the graphical Human-Machine Interface (HMI), using its specialised WiseBOS Platform. The tool was developed as a stand-alone module in a lab setting for dry-run testing and was continuously updated based on user feedback.
eBOS acted as the Quality Assurance and Risk Manager for the project, ensuring that the deliverables and project outcomes were of high quality and that risks were mitigated promptly. eBOS also designed and maintained the project’s website and contributed to the elaboration of the project’s dissemination and sustainability plans. Additionally, it helped further disseminate the results by presenting them to key associations.
Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Research Executive Agency. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.
