The event took place in the second edition of the Hackathon Agro during the last Expo Prado, and the team is already thinking about commercializing the innovative idea.
In the framework of the 112th edition of Expo Prado, the Hackathon Agro took place for the second consecutive year, organized by the Uruguayan Chamber of Information Technology (CUTI), the Rural Association of Uruguay (ARU), the British Embassy and da Vinci Foundation, where eight teams were present.
The proposals covered problematic situations faced by Uruguayan agriculture, on which multidisciplinary teams had to develop a business model with a viable prototype that represented a solution.
The winning team was made up of Juan Francisco Kniazev, Carlos Capano and Agustín Ackermann, who met on the same day of the competition and come from different profiles and ages. Kniazev, 21, is in his second year at the Faculty of Agronomy at Udelar, Capano, 28, is a student of international business at the Catholic University and Ackermann, 35, works in the area of programming and technology.
The challenge proposed was the development of mechanisms for the prediction of climatological events before the appearance of diseases in certain winter crops. The team's solution consisted of devising a model that, by means of sensors installed in the plantations, would capture information 24 hours a day, which would then be sent to an artificial intelligence web platform that would process data and predict future situations in the short term.
In this way, the producer can receive this information, adjusted to certain alerts, and take actions or decisions about their crop based on the situation they are experiencing, Kniazev told Empresas & Negocios.
The work began on Saturday, September 9 at nine in the morning and ended the next day at four in the afternoon. The project demanded a market study with validation of the producers themselves, which was done through an online survey, where the approximate losses due to diseases and the willingness to use a system to prevent them were consulted.
They also consulted the producers who were present at the Prado venue. They also had contact with specialists on the subject at the stand of the National Institute of Agricultural Research (INIA).
The data collected showed that, at the national level, due to leaf spots in barley nets (the specific disease that was studied), Uruguayan producers lose about 30% of their production. With the solution proposed by the team, farmers can reduce this loss by 10%.
"The Hackathon Agro is the opportunity for innovators who want to undertake in the world of business or new technologies."
The award consisted of a trip to England to attend a conference on agricultural technologies and bioeconomy, as well as a guided tour and a meeting with authorities from Harper Adams University. About this, Kniazev said: "It is a great opportunity for both academic and personal development to know how they work in England, the methods they use, the technologies they have, how they are managed and to nourish ourselves academically".
The team is working to patent the idea, so it is currently in a project validation phase. "We are checking all the data more precisely and adjusting factors, but the goal is to market it and form a company that provides this service," he said. In addition, they are already generating professional networks to establish contacts and enter the market later.
As a final reflection of the event, Kniazev said: "It is a great opportunity for people who have ideas or want to propose solutions and are able to detect problems that many people are not aware of.
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