Report
Teaser, summary, work performed and final results
Periodic Reporting for period 1 - VECMAP IPM (VECMAP IPM, a one-stop-shop for the sustainable prevention of urban pests of public health Importance)
Teaser
The beginning of the 21st century has witnessed in addition to hugely increased transport of people and goods, important changes in climate, human behaviour & ecology that favour the development and spread of urban pests. These changes are causing pests and the diseases they...
Summary
The beginning of the 21st century has witnessed in addition to hugely increased transport of people and goods, important changes in climate, human behaviour & ecology that favour the development and spread of urban pests. These changes are causing pests and the diseases they may transmit not only to expand but also to spread and emerge in countries where they were previously unknown.
At this moment, most pest controllers limit their interventions to easily applicable reactive control methods using harsh chemicals in a ‘carpet bombing’ setting. However, as imposed by the European Union since 2014, all member states should have reverted to more complex proactive prevention methods, applying Integrated Pest Management (IPM) principles, but pest control operators lack the tools to do so! The different factors affecting this shift are highlighted in Figure 1.
Avia-GIS is a leader in integrating space technology, ecology and epidemiology to develop tools that that support society to overcome one of its important health threats: the spread of Pests of Public Health importance. With support from the European Space Agency (ESA) Downstream Business Applications Program the company developed – VECMAP® – a software package for the area-wide risk mapping of vector-borne diseases. With support from this H2020 Industrial Leadership Program supporting innovation in SMEs the company is now bringing VECMAP® to the market and developing a complementary software package – SMARTSENZ® – to enable public and private pest control operators to plan and implement IPM operations and reduce the risk of vector-borne diseases (Fig. 2).
Within 5 years from now Avia-GIS will be upscaled from a company obtaining most of its income from contract research to a world leader earning recurrent revenues from the sales of its IPM software solutions. By 2023 SMARTSENZ® will be the standard software for local authorities and private pest control companies throughout Europe and Avia-GIS will be on its way to expand to other continents and be the recognised N°1 Worldwide IPM expert ensuring that pests no longer threaten your health!
Work performed
During the first half of this two year project we:
- Developed a generic version of VECMAP;
- Established a commercial sales and product support team;
- Started living labs to develop and test our new software in two pilot countries: in France with EDIALUX our partner value added reseller, and in South Africa with our daughter company Avia-GIS RSA;
- Attracted a first private investor who joined the company as a managing partner.
Final results
Sixty percent of the urban pest control market in Europe is serviced by SMEs with less than 50 technicians of which the majority have less than 5 technical staff. Most of these companies lack the knowledge and don’t have access to the required software tools to shift from classic ‘carpet bombing’ pest control approaches favouring the use of chemicals to more complex IPM techniques based on an in-depth knowledge of the biology of each pest. Our unique software will enable such public and private pest control operators to convert to sustainable IPM practices and will make them more competitive against large international pest control companies who are hampered by high overhead costs and therefore often favour quantity against quality.
Our main ambition and societal impact is to become the Pan-European IPM enabler helping Urban Pest Control SMEs and local authorities to significantly reduce the use of chemicals that may be harmful to the health of the public and the environment. By the end of the project we will have developed and tested our software, and established a viable marketing and sales approach as a basis for our PAN-European network of Value Added Resellers who will help us achieve this goal.
Website & more info
More info: https://www.avia-gis.com/smartsenz.