Commissioned by the Rural Network (part of the Ministry of Agriculture and Economic affairs), Terragon explored the concept of the Rural Connector, an approach that uses advanced data analytics to enhance collective ‘green’ intelligence. The rural connector creates meaningful connections and community-building to achieve more value, strengthen the rural economy, and connect rural Europe.

The Rural Connector uses a profiling system and intelligent recommender agents to uncover useful connections and collaborative opportunities. They will predict when there should be links and interactions between people. Most importantly, it can analyse new and existing data across platforms. With all the available data, algorithms can be trained to recommend when one person should contact another or when a hub could be formed.

These tools help linking members together on a continuous basis and facilitate the creation of communities that share a purpose and create value. By leveraging their online connections, members of the network can form clusters, hubs or communities where they can work together in new ways on issues that matter to them, ultimately, increasing the network’s social capital.

The Rural Connector can be used to:
facilitate the collection and analysis of up-to-date data from the “grassroots”;
harness the collective knowledge that already exists within the network; produce real-life events with more concrete outputs and benefits for all involved;
identify promising initiatives and collaboration opportunities;
select the best combination of social tools to share resources, exchange ideas, advice, and collaborative opportunities;
develop pathways of connection that strengthen value creation within the network;
facilitate the exchange of grassroots experience and expertise across national networks in the European Union.