France-based, Chouette is developing a vine monitoring solution & decision support tool for winegrowers. In essence, the startup offers winegrowers the option to acquire, rent or lease a DJI drone &/ sensors for their tractors to monitor vines. The time saving is significant: “to survey four hectares of vines on foot takes a day, but only one hour with the drone”. The vines are scanned (with AI) for multiple fungi & diseases, impacts from drought or frost, as well as checked for plant maturation (& estimated future yield). Historical data is used to anticipate protection of the most sensitive areas by e.g. enabling optimal use of phytosanitary treatments & fertilizers, thereby lowering production costs &...

The University of Tartu (aka the national university of Estonia) received €60m in grant funding (distributed over the next 6 years) from the European Commission & the Estonian state to develop two international centers of excellence (receiving €30m each). The first center, which focuses on digitalized synthetic biology, is led by Professor Mart Loog of molecular systems biology & aims to facilitate the big data-driven design of cells (for the bio-industry). This center will upgrade the Estonian Centre for Biosustainability by setting up a digitalized & robot-assisted laboratory unit for building cell systems (aka a biofoundry) linked to IT units for software development, big data processing & ML. A startup accelerator is to be created...