What a year 2024!

What a year 2024 was! It started on January 1st, like every other year, though it was a unique year in my professional career. On November 28th, the Institute for Intelligent Systems and Smart Farming (ISF, https://www.ost.ch/isf/) was inaugurated and celebrated. The opening ceremony was a festive act resulting from the hard work of extraordinary people!

This post expresses my gratitude to all partners and supporters on this exciting journey.

The Thurgauer Innovation Forum brought together political leaders and university officials who attended the inauguration ceremony. Thank you Canton Thurgau, Walter Schoenholzer, Denise Neuweiler, Christof Widmer and Martin Angehrn. The formation of ISF has a more extended history than a year; it began in 2020 with outstanding engagement from Monika Knill, Urs Schwager, Ueli Bleiker, and Jürgen Prenzler, initiators of the Living Lab. Thank you for making it possible!

My gratitude extends to Daniel Seelhofer, Alex Simeon and Knut Siercks, who enabled and supported an agile and productive environment for the project team in the final project phase.

Our dedicated team's attention to detail ensured the project's and Forum's success. Stefan Bertsch, Katrin Lohan, and Ueli Scherrer, thank you for endless hours, dedication, open and productive discussions, and, last but not least, distinguished creativity and endurance. Perfect planning of the event was in the capable hands of Marisa H?mmerle and Martina Heeb.

Oliver Christ, Jasmin Seitz, and Laura Koller thank you for your patience and foresight with us, engineers and nerds, and for your considerable efforts in establishing the governance, contracts, and agreements for the ISF and marvellous phase I and II of the project.

My endless gratitude is dedicated to the young and dedicated ISF team. Luis Meier, Dominic Diedenhofen and Marco Morf, thank you for your agility, resilience and passion; Anna Pietak, Jonas Scholz, Matthias K?nig and Robin Ehrensperger, your contributions to the project and the event were fundamental, and without them, we would not be as successful as we are. Thank you!

The transition from Rapperswil to T?nikon couldn't have been as smooth and effective without substantial support from Agathe Koller and Frank Ehrig. Your help and support are appreciated.

For me, a standout moment was ANYbotics ANYmal's delivery of ceremony scissors to the stage. This symbolic gesture started a fruitful collaboration between OST and ANYbotics, perfectly aligned with our mission: an innovative, sustainable, and beneficial food production chain. The enthusiasm for this collaboration showcases the promising path ahead for our university and community. The ANYmal has yet to be named; it is considered a ninth team member.

It was very exciting to meet Alexander Lehrmann, Manuel Küffer, and Timo H?fer from our broad-leaved dock control project. We were also delighted to meet Satschin Bansai and Benjamin Mottis, who look forward to our joint endeavour of integrating disruptive and new intelligent systems into smart-farming applications!

I am honoured and humbled by the challenges before us, though I am sure we will succeed in our mission. We are partnering up in T?nikon-Aadorf with Agroscope and Swiss Future Farm and concatenating the expertise in agronomy, education, consulting, and technology in the farm-to-food chain. With Canton Thurgau's and OST's support, we will accomplish our goals!

Let me share some impressions from this year, and let's be excited to have more impressions in 2025!