The Miami Scientific Italian Community (MSIC) will promote the dissemination of the project at the Florida International University and at the University of Miami
“The Italian researchers’ expertise represents an intangible asset of great relevance to the development of our economy and it requires a constant Institutional support ” said Fabio De Furia, Executive Vice President of Scientific Miami Italian Community and President of the Consorzio Roma Ricerche, who through the MSIC and with the support of the Consulate General of Italy in Miami, Florida will promote the project CROPP (Coltures Risks and Prevention Observation Platform. The project, coordinated by Prof. Paolo Gaudenzi, Director of the Professional Master in Satellites and orbital platforms of the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Sapienza-University of Rome and developed by a team of nine students of Sapienza University, has won the International Space Apps Challenge in the category “Galactic Impact” of the competition organized by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and that involves more than 150 universities around the world.
The winning team – who will also be rewarded by the US Embassy in Rome, Italy that sponsored the event – will be hosted by NASA on September 2nd at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida where the launch of spacecrafts takes place.
On this occasion, the Miami Italian Scientific Community, in line with its mission to aggregate the large Italian scientific community established in Florida and to promote the scientific collaboration between Italian and US academic institutions, will organize a series of meetings to promote and support this research and its potential development. The first event is scheduled on September 4th when the delegation will meet, respectively, the researchers and scientists of Florida International University (FIU) led by Christine I. Caly-Sanchez (Associate Director of the Miami-Florida European Union Center of Excellence) and those of the University of Miami, led by Prof. Massimiliano Galeazzi (Associate Chair of the Department of Physics).
CROOP is a platform designed to help farmers in monitoring their lands by providing them with real-time information about possible risks that could threaten their crops. The winning app provides real-time crop risk assessment based on a system composed by a bottle-bot with sensors to gather in-situ data applied to optical and radar satellite imaging. The team is composed by Andrea Gallegati, Andrea Di Ruscio, Nicole Segala, Virginia Notaro, Simone La Fauci, Gabriele Angeletti, Giorgio Severi, Valentina Celani e Mohamed Elhariry.
“The prize awarded to these students is a major success that generate hope in those who, like us, work in the field of innovation, defending and promoting the Italian scientific and technological know-how” said De Furia “Our aim, through the activities of the MSIC and of the Consorzio Roma Ricerche, is to reaffirm our leadership, to facilitate the creation of networks between Italy-USA, to intercept and share new business models and innovative strategies, so that new flows of knowledge and investments can be dynamically developed ”