The “Research, Technology and Innovation Platform for Date Palm Integrated Production Systems in the NENA Region” has been officially launched on March 14, 2022, at the 7th International Date Palm Conference in Abu Dhabi under the patronage of H.H. Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the President of the United Arab Emirates. The conference was organized and supported by the General Secretariat of the Khalifa International Award for Date Palm and Agricultural Innovation. Due to the high potential and the increasing importance of date palm in the NENA region, AARINENA and FAO collaborated to establish and operationalize this innovation platform that focuses on coordinating the efforts of the member countries at the regional and international levels and acts as an interactive hub for multi-stakeholders including researchers, producers, fund providers, farmers’ associations, private industries, investors, and government agencies to promote the date palm integrated production system in the NENA region and to maintain high competitiveness in a dynamic global market. The platform serves as a hub for information and knowledge that effectively links relevant stakeholders to consolidate available research results, technologies, and innovations related to the date palm production value chain. The platform will also play a role in the technology transfer and capacity enhancement of various stakeholders using ICT solutions.
AARINENA in collaboration with FAO conducted a series of distance coaching protocols and capacity-building activities. One of these activities is the Beta Version Testing Meeting for the Research, Technology, and Innovation Date Palm Platform on January 19, 2022. This meeting focused on the strategy of launching, full-scale testing with stakeholders, reviewing comments and feedback, reviewing ease of use, issues, and needs, etc. Participants were asked ahead of time and prior to the meeting to sign up and created accounts on the date palm platform to have an interactive session, discussion, and feedback with stakeholders. There were 33 stakeholders participants from the date palm sector who signed in to the platform http://aarinena.org/palm/ and then testing procedures started step by step with participants. This testing helps in the minimization of product failure risks and provides increased quality of the product through customer validation. Usually, it is the last testing stage before the software is released into the real world.
AARINENA also conducted another Stakeholders Training Session and Pilot Testing on the Research, Technology and Innovation Date Palm Platform on January 12 and February 16, 2022. These two meetings focused on practical use and testing of the platform, core features (functionality), signing up (registration), forums, resources, and project management tools as well as interactive session for the platform functionality, discussion, and feedback. Software and IT Experts went through the physical e-platform where they provided demonstration on the components of the platform. The platform provides a place for products, services, and information to support the implementation of various technologies or technical innovation on date palm. Anyone can easily register on the https://aarinena.orgpalm/, then receive the approval from AARINENA, finally anyone can sign in easily and interact on the forums.