Karavias Underwriting Agency is founded in May 2014 by George Karavias and an experienced team of account executives as the continuation of Karavias & Associates who has been handling Binder Agreements since 1992 for a variety of risks. The management team and the key stuff of the new founded company have actually been managing a sizable client portfolio of more than 35.000 accounts for almost 25 years up today, with a proven claim processing track record and a high level of underwriting capabilities, all of which have led to the creation of a significant and profitable portfolio of specie risks. The core of this team has been among the first to insure emerging, unusual and complex risks such as Fine Art, Livestock & Bloodstock, Professional Liability and other demanding Classes of Business, in the majority placed with several Lloyd’s Brokers, achieving a remarkable penetration in the Greek Market and impressive underwriting results.Karavias Underwriting Agency as Coverholder at Lloyd’s, has the capacity and experience to provide insurance solutions in the agricultural sector. The agricultural industry is quickly evolving due to the increased crop demand, rising production costs and variable weather patterns. Modelling the growing correlation between crops and regions is critical to understanding the true tail risk of various perils and the financial exposure of the producers and insurers. Crop producers and agribusiness entities around the world are realizing the value of forward - thinking insurance providers who can provide innovative products, financial strength, and superior risk management. Karavias Underwriting Agency is able to provide risk assessment, risk underwriting, policy issuance and claims management. The Agency is already active in all Insurance Sectors and is very well recognized among a sales network of almost 2.000 brokers and insurance consultants, seeking to expand its activity through innovative services and pioneering solutions based on new technologies and experienced executives. The Agency is an Approved Lloyd’s Coverholder, and also a member of the Hellenic Insurance Broker Association (HIBA) at which the company’s CEO, Mr. George Karavias is the elected President.
Website: https://gkaravias.gr/
Role in BEACON: Karavias is the coordinator of the BEACON project (WP1) and is also responsible for the implementation and coordination of BEACON’s use cases in operational conditions (WP5). Karavias will pilot test the BEACON solution and participate in the evaluation and assessment of the resulting services.
AgroApps is an SME founded on 2015 in Thessaloniki, providing advanced ICT solutions and services to public and private organisations focused on agricultural solutions for climate and weather forecasting. AGROAPPS has significant experience in exploitation and market exploration on state-of-the-art and standards compliant technology solutions, taking “applied” IT applications to their real market. AgroApps has a vast network of highly advanced people and technologies. AgroApps software specification and information technology team uses sophisticated models and forecasting techniques in providing highly accurate solutions and services within the framework of the real market exploitation. AgroApps makes its customers understand the added value of the solution and makes them step up and take advantage of every bit of the application. AgroApps vision is to make climate and weather forecasting solutions reach their real market. No matter if it is everyday people or extremely specialized target groups. AgroApps target is to find and exploit the real-life markets in favour of its products and make sure that they do not stay dormant.
Website: https://agroapps.gr/en/homepage/
Role in BEACON: AgroApps is responsible for the delivery of the processing modules that will operationally produce the Earth Observation products and atmospheric data (WP3) as well as leading the development and delivery of the IT infrastructure for the provision of BEACON toolbox.
Universidad Politécnica de Madrid is the largest Spanish technological university specialized in all engineering fields and architecture. With two recognitions as Campus of International Excellence, its outstanding research activity together with its highly-qualified professionals trainings, make UPM a really competitive university at international level. More than 2.400 researchers carry out their activity at the UPM, grouped in more than 200 Research Groups, 20 Research Centers (as CEIGRAM) or Institutes and 55 Laboratories, all of them committed to transform the knowledge generated into innovation advances applied to the productive sector, contributing to solve the challenges of the European citizens.The intense collaboration with governmental bodies and industry guarantees that research at UPM offers real solutions to real-world problems. The dynamism of R&D&I activity at the UPM, together with the transfer of knowledge to society, are among its lines of strategy. These two commitments place UPM among the Spanish universities with the greatest research activity, both at national and international level, counting on an International Projects Office that helps and support researchers in the international research arena. UPM highly innovation driven commitment is showed by the application for around 40 patents/year thanks to its Technology Transfer Office and by the generation around 20 spinoff/year (70% survival rate) trained and mentored by the UPM Center for Innovation Support. Moreover UPM is highly committed to communication and outreach with and specific unit devoted to it. All this shows that UPM is an institution committed to the transfer of knowledge generated through its research structures to society, and its transformation into advances and technological developments applied to the productive sector.
Website: www.upm.es/UPM
Role in BEACON: Within BEACON, UPM will provide expertise in agroinsurance activity and management processes applied to the Spanish case. Specifically, UPM will provide advice on the variables, criteria and type of information needed for the design and architecture of the tools designed by the project in order to optimise management processes of agroinsurance, facilitate crop monitoring and estimation of potential damages for great claims and design of early warning systems for severe weather events. UPM will test and validate BEACON toolbox.
Etherisc GmbH is building a platform for decentralized insurance applications. We can create a platform full of opportunities across the industry’s value chain. Corporates, large and small, not-for-profit groups and insurtech startups can all come together to provide better products and services. We aim to use blockchain technology to help make the purchase and sale of insurance more efficient, enable lower operational costs, provide greater transparency into the industry and democratize access to reinsurance investments. Blockchain can provide the means to disintermediate the market with a peer-to-peer risk platform that helps insurance return to its roots as society’s safety net. We even envisage new groups building their own bespoke insurance risk pools and services on the platform. And Etherisc aims to be a fully-compliant, fully licensed insurance platform for the emerging blockchain economy. In short, Etherisc can deliver the insurance industry the modernization customers are crying out for.
Website: www.etherisc.com
Role in BEACON: Etherisc GmbH, is responsible to leverage on Blockchain technology and design, develop and deliver the “Smart Contracts” function to the BEACON toolbox. This includes a technical protocol and application layers where all service providers in the industry can operate, new and old. These service providers can be anything from insurance companies, insurtech startups, license holders, risk modelers to claim settlement specialists, identity providers and financiers of the back-end reinsurance.
The Faculty of Civil Engineering being part of the University of Belgrade is the oldest and largest educational and scientific institution in the fields of civil engineering, geodesy and geoinformatics in Serbia and in the Balkans. The Faculty is organized in eight basic academic and scientific units Departments). These units are established in the function of with the purpose of teaching and scientific work for one or more related fields of science. The Faculty has been involved in a number of Horizon 2020 and national research projects. The Department of Geodesy and Geoinformatics conduct education and research in the field of Geomatics, namely: Survey and land territory management, Remote Sensing, Cartography, Land information systems, GIS, Reference geodetic networks etc. The Department hosts Laboratory for development of the open source geospatial technologies - OSGL, which is to be involved in the project. The laboratory has been involved in several Horizon 2020 and several national scientific projects focused on research in Earth Observation data processing methods and applications in operational land monitoring and spatio-temporal modelling in geosciences and environmental disciplines. Results of the research have been implemented in CORINE operational land cover mapping project in Serbia and IGIS project aimed at establishing initial operations of the newly founded Serbian Remote Sensing Centre within the Republic Geodetic Authority.
Website: https://www.grf.bg.ac.rs/fakultet/la/e?lid=15
Role in BEACON: The Department of Geodesy and Geoinformatics is involved in the BEACON project on behalf of the UBFCE. The Department is responsible for the identification of end-user’s requirements and for the co-creation of services in cooperation with the users (WP2).
Founded in 2014, in Novi Sad, Serbia, InoSens is an innovation driven consultancy focused on value creation in the agrifood value chain. InoSens brings substantial experience to the diversified agricultural sector, which we have developed by bridging the gap between Information Communication Technology with the Agricultural Sector. We are actively engaged in pan-European Horizon2020 Projects, as well as in consulting with companies in both Europe and the Middle-East on implementing precision agriculture technology and sustainable agricultural business models. Moreover, InoSens has a keen understanding in many critical agricultural issues and challenges farmers face when seeking to grow and elevate their farming performances. The company heavily relies on various co- development methodologies, adapted in-house to the specific characteristics of the agrifood sector. InoSens builds on key accounts from the agrifood sector and maintains strong and lasting alliances with complementary players (e.g. hardware vendors, agronomists, food scientists, etc.).
Website: www.inosens.rs
Role in BEACON: InoSens, is responsible for the design of the BEACON toolbox commercialisation strategy during and beyond the lifespan of the project. InoSens, will identify potential B2B models, strategies and markets in order to secure the successful commercialization of BEACON (WP6).
ETAM SA is a development planning and business consulting company, founded in 1993 and based in Heraklion, Greece. Currently, ETAM employs a multidisciplinary team of 18 managers, senior consultants and consultants, all experts of high academic education.
The company is certified with ISO 9001:2015 and ISO 14001:2015 and is a full member of the Hellenic Association of Management Consulting Firms (member of the European Federation of Management Consultancies Associations). With its long listed track record (more than 600 projects since 1993) ETAM is specialized in a variety of fields such us Market Analysis, Business Planning, Communication, Dissemination and Exploitation, Cross-border and Transnational Cooperation, Rural Development, Environmental Management, Feasibility Studies and Field Research.
For more than 25 years ETAM has been providing high-quality studies and consulting services for companies, agencies and organizations. Armed with many years of market presence, high scientific expertise and a skilled and experienced workforce, has succeeded in becoming one of the largest consulting firms in the Hellenic periphery. With strict consistency and professionalism, ETAM provides a wide range of consultancy services for all types of business ventures, research and development initiatives.
Website: www.etam.gr
Role in BEACON: ETAM is responsible for the development and implementation of effective dissemination strategies in order to meet the needs of BEACON solution during the lifespan of the project (WP7).
