Project No: 14906

Project dates:
1 Mar 2015 - 31 Oct 2016

Coordinator:
Yannis Skourtis, Integrated Information Technology & Digital Communication (Greece)

Collaborating Institutions:

Marina Fischer-Kowalski, Alpen Adria Universität (Austria)

Nina Fuchs, ZALF-Zentrum für Agrarlanschaftsforschung e.V. (Germany)

Links:
Project website
Full report

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Happy Goats is a model-driven decision support web app for sustainable small ruminants (goats & sheep) farming which helps farmers make management planning decisions for each year (herd size, costs, income, production and working hours) and understand their ecological impact. Happy Goats produces various reports with simple easy-to-understand charts and projections and plain text advice, which help farmers visualize the impact of their choices and plan for an optimized production.

The Happy Goats team, with the financial and business development support of SmartAgriFood and ICT-AGRI, has successfully progressed, during a 18 months period through a) Building a working prototype; b) Going through end-user trials in Greece and Austria and gathering critical user feedback; c) Applying insights from user trials to develop the next iteration of Happy Goats which is being deployed in the market now and d) Developing an investor-ready business plan with the assistance of our business development partners to address investors and collaborating partners internationally.

In the last six-month period of the project, we have focused our resources for business development and have come up with the following results and impacts for Happy Goats' exploitation: a) Our business plan has grown from a fledgling draft to a detailed action plan with full financial forecasts for sales in three countries and an exit strategy for the investor. b) We have kept working closely with local actors for the last 12 months to gather full market insight and prepare dales and distribution channels. c) We have received valuable business coaching and training. d) We have networked and pitched to investors in numerous events (FIWARE bootcamps, local events- Business Angels Forum etc) and e) We have concluded important commercial tours ahead of Happy Goats' market launch.