Peter Hanappe works on the urgent challenge of creating a more sustainable society and finding a new balance between Nature, Society and Technologies. He is actively engaged in research on sustainable farming wherein he pioneers the concept of intensive microfarms. This approach combines 19th century Parisian farming techniques with innovative technological tools and is well-suited to design AI for understanding, augmenting and transmitting traditional agricultural methods.    

These ideas were developed in the EU funded projects Robotics for Microfarms that Peter coordinated, and CENTRINNO. Peter is involved in two other noteworthy EU projects: DREAM and Mi-Hy.  

Peter graduated in electronic engineering at the University of Ghent, Belgium, in 1994 and obtained a PhD in Computer Music at Ircam – Centre George Pompidou in Paris in 1999. He joined Sony CSL in 2002. His earlier work includes the use of low-power computing techniques to exploit the unused computing power of home PCs to run large-scale climate simulations. In the NoiseTube project, users of cellphones collectively measure and create detailed maps of environmental pollution, particularly of urban noise.