ARTS WITHOUT BORDERS. “Building Bridges” (AWB) is an arts, educational, multi dimensional, transnational project coordinated by NICOLA (United Kingdom) in partnership with NICOLA (France), Projeto Presente (Brazil) and Ministere de la Culture et de la Communication (Senegal) , aimed to youth within the field of arts and digital literacy. It pursues to have an impact in both youngsters and their communities giving an arts/media/digital literacy training focused on the use of digital tools, transnational networking and the creation of open access materials with the final objective of enabling the youngsters to create their own enterprise, working groups or associations, and also providing them with formal and non formal learning which will help them in their future career development. ARTS WITHOUT BORDERS. “Building Bridges” is an arts/media training course which foresees a programme with mobility activities held in London (UK), Strasbourg (France), Serra do Cipó (Brazil) and Dakar (Senegal). 28 youths and sixteen youth workers met in these four locations within a period of 24 months and engaged in a variety of activities which included workshops in arts and digital literacy, enterprising and networking within the field of the cultural industry, innovative techniques and learning methods and personal development. Events such as debates and a seminar were also planned and included. The creation of final materials for lifelong learning (OER) is available in a web platform (https://www.nicolaartswithoutborders.com/), which was of the main objectives of the project. Its creation has the purpose of sharing and developing open access content as well as serving as a meeting point for further collaborations between the four organisations/regions. There was a variety of activities, focused on workshops in music, media and creative industry, mixed with the last trends in technology, researching and learning within the field, while taking the command of their own productions. The topics addressed were freedom of speech, civil society engagement, human rights, tolerance within different cultures and personal development through arts as key features. As its names suggests, the main focus of this project is to overcome borders, not only geographical ones, but socioeconomic, ethnic and cultural ones, mixing arts and digital tools/resources. We aimed and achieved to build bridges, connecting the youth and fostering cooperation amongst them, preventing the isolation created by borders, which we pretend to overcome through arts and digital tools. We pursue to enhance the relations South-North in the field, creating positive synergies and effective and lasting cooperation beyond the project.

<< Background >>With a growing world population estimated by the United Nations to be over 9 billion people by 2050, consumption patterns are changing and it is estimated that demand for food will increase by 70%. Yet, our current farming model is ill-suited to respond to future demands and we will need to make some changes in the agricultural production.A sustainable production would be achieved not only by managing the economics, but also by including other factors such as soil fertility, soil erosion or water use. In this context, digital farming appeared as a promising model to help achieve these objectives through precision technology.Precision agriculture has been defined as a way to “apply the right treatment in the right place at the right time” (Gebbers and Adamchuk, 2010). As an example, precise irrigation methods are developing rapidly in order to save water while improving yields and fruit quality (Precision Agriculture: an opportunity for EU farmers, 2014)In 2019, during the EU’s ‘Digital Day’, 24 EU Member States signed a declaration on ‘A smart and sustainable digital future for European agriculture and rural areas’ which recognises the potential of digital technologies to help tackle important and urgent economic, social, climate and environmental challenges facing the EU's agri-food sector and rural areas. According to Roberto Viola, Director General of DG connect at the European Commission, today people expect to be able to buy food that is high quality, safe, and affordable. Many consumers want to know how our food is produced and to be reassured that this happens with minimum environmental damage and usage of precious resources such as water and energy (The future of farming: How digital can make a difference, 08/03/2020).Digital farming is a way to increase farm efficiency while improving economic and environmental sustainability using Artificial Intelligence, robotics, data analysis and other digital tools and skills. Increased use of digital technologies will also have a positive impact on the quality of life in rural areas, and may attract a younger generation to farming and rural business start-ups. Indeed, according to the EU Agricultural and Farm Economics Briefs of 2017, only 5.6% of all European farms were run by farmers younger than 35 in 2017 while more than 31% of all farmers were older than 65.The “AGRI’s” project aims to provide tools and methodologies to adults’ educators for them to raise awareness regarding precision agriculture and help adults to acquire necessary skills to become entrepreneurs in the agro-food industry using digital technologies.<< Objectives >>With this premises “AGRI Smart” (AGRI’s) Cooperation Partnership project aims at:Objective 1: Promote agriculture entrepreneurship as a sustainable farming model;Objective 2: Develop precision agriculture in Europe to answer the growing need of food and promote a new model of farming towards a more sustainable one;Objective 3: Empower adults with digital and entrepreneurial skills in the agro-food industry to become actors of a sustainable future and become more competitive actors at the same time.<< Implementation >>The activities that will be implemented during the project life-time will be the following:-Production of a Guide addressed to all adults interested in the topic. For this purpose, partners will use survey for needs analysis, research, interview with professionals, and peer-review methodologies;-Production of a Training Format addressed to adults’ trainers/educators. Partners will be implementing the output through research making, peer-review methodology, Piloting of the Training Format, Local workshop implementation, feedback collection;-Creation of a social community to be used by farmers interested in/using precision agriculture and willing to share and/or discuss about their experience regarding precision agriculture practices.<< Results >>In order to reach the objectives, the project’s partners will produce the following results:-1 guide which explains the concept of precision agriculture and how it can help to reach a more sustainable model of producing. The guide will contain a state-of-the-art in the involved countries regarding precision technologies applied to agricultural industry with some examples of best precision agriculture practices in order to show the benefits of using them and encourage future entrepreneurs to consider them. The guide will be addressed to adults interested in the topic. -1 Training Format for adults’ educators interested in promoting agricultural entrepreneurship in a sustainable way. The Training Format will provide the target group with some tools and methodologies to be used and reproduced at the local level in order to give new skills and knowledge to young adults that would be interested in agricultural entrepreneurship on how to start a business in agriculture. The Training Format will contain modules dealing with entrepreneurial skills applied to agriculture, including digital skills for young adults to be prepared for a new farming model (data analysis, Artificial Intelligence, social media communication, etc…).-1 social community on a web platform where farmers can share their experience with precision technologies used in their agricultural business, discuss with other farmers regarding these technologies and the data they collected to improve the farming methods and get better quality and more sustainable products.