The application of new technologies to obtain information on the forestry sector and other activities in the Galician countryside is the main objective of the 3eData start-up from Lugo, which was born in 2016 through the initiative of three forestry engineers from the Institute of Agricultural Biodiversity and Rural Development (IBADER) and that in recent years has not stopped advancing in the exploration of new possibilities to develop tools that help extract information from the territory.
Marco Rubinos, one of the founding partners of the company, explains that the project was born with the idea of offering a service based on the research that its promoters had developed at the university. “We started from a series of technologies that had innovative elements and, in addition, the appearance of drones was a boost as it was a tool closer to the ground that facilitated the possibility of having a better service,” says Rubinos.
3eData was born in 2016 as a spin-off of the University of Santiago (USC) and its innovative character prevails to this day, although the type of services offered is changing. Now the company is in a specific development phase within European projects. In the forestry sector, they created a tool to process the data and convert it into information to, for example, make an assessment of the volume of wood stocks in the forest.
European projects
Currently, the start-up from Lugo is marketing this type of service and others that were also developed within European projects and that are related to biodiversity, water quality and other aspects related to the territory. The agroforestry sector is its main field of action, as there are many needs to attend to in this field, and its projects range from electrical infrastructure to topography and telemetry services, including the hydrobiological, forestry and livestock sectors.
The basis of the work carried out by 3eData begins with personal attention to clients, since it is essential to establish a permanent communication channel to understand all aspects of the problem to be solved and attend to all needs during the development of the project. The company maintains a direct connection with research centers to analyze customer needs with the latest scientific information available.
Rubinos points out that the public sector is what represents the largest billing volume, although they do not lose sight of private clients and, for example, they began to market the forestry asset valuation service to wood auctioneers.
Institutional support
In the six European projects in which they are currently participating, they have partners from different countries and also international clients who work in Spain. In any case, apart from engineering, his work is concentrated in the Iberian northwest, since it is the territory to which his model is adapted.
“The management of European projects and the development of development models are part of the company’s DNA, but we want to expand sectors and sell more services to private companies, especially in the forestry sector,” says Rubinos, who also highlights family and institutional support with whom they counted for the development of the company, especially those of the Vía Galicia accelerator and those of the Igape and the Galician Innovation Agency (Gain) of the Xunta de Galicia. 3eData also collaborates with the Aerospace Center of Rozas to develop analysis tools for the territory.
