We’ve invited the cream of the crop to this hackathon and that includes you!
Graduate and undergraduate students, any major, any year, any school- everyone is welcome!
Thoughtfully selected students from the top 5 agriculture schools in the world are also attending! Yes, you heard correct! This is truly an international event with the potential for global impact. Student and faculty guests are coming from Wageningen University (Netherlands), University of São Paulo (Brazil), China Agricultural University, and the University of California, Davis.
With the resources and mentors we gathered, it's your opportunity to explore what technology can do for agriculture. It’s time to take your ideas from concept to reality.
Join us for conversations with senior leaders, participants from around the world, networking, and ~36 hours to level up your digital ag experience.
200 students + mentors + $8,000 in cash prizes = 1 life changing weekend.
We’ve invited the cream of the crop to this hackathon and that includes you!
Graduate and undergraduate students, any major, any year, any school- everyone is welcome!
Thoughtfully selected students from the top 5 agriculture schools in the world are also attending! Yes, you heard correct! This is truly an international event with the potential for global impact. Student and faculty guests are coming from Wageningen University (Netherlands), University of São Paulo (Brazil), China Agricultural University, and the University of California, Davis.
With the resources and mentors we gathered, it's your opportunity to explore what technology can do for agriculture. It’s time to take your ideas from concept to reality.
Join us for conversations with senior leaders, participants from around the world, networking, and ~36 hours to level up your digital ag experience.
200 students + mentors + $8,000 in cash prizes = 1 life changing weekend.
There are few products or services with as much universal demand as food & agriculture, or where the side effects are so profound. Too often, there’s insufficient access to food, harmful health impacts, inefficient supply chains, and a reliance on petrochemicals–these are problems and these are opportunities as well.
In 2019 humans spent more than seven trillion dollars on food. That food does more than simply keep us alive, it makes us feel alive, changes our culture and impacts the planet. Did you know 33% of all agriculture land world-wide is used to produce food to feed livestock?
The good news is that there’s more leverage than ever before. More power to more people. More chances to make a difference and to make a living doing it. This is your chance to understand the ecosystem and to actually do something about it!
Over the next few decades, a rising global population, increasing wealth, changing consumer demand and climate variation will put growing pressure on food systems. While global demand might be met through current agricultural practices in the short term, these strategies are unsustainable for the long term. Globally, agriculture demands a radical transformation.
The world’s future food systems must become more sustainable, productive, resilient and efficient. We must re-envision the way food is produced, processed and distributed, the way natural resources are used, recycled and replenished, and the way social and agricultural systems interact to support healthy individuals, communities and environment. To transform existing food systems, we must integrate knowledge from biology, ecology, engineering, business, computer and information science and the social sciences to create communication networks that enable timely response and informed decision-making at the level of the farm, community, nation and world.
Cornell Initiative for Digital Agriculture (CIDA) connects world-renowned researchers across academic boundaries with multidisciplinary practitioners to address global food system challenges. CIDA develops and applies digital innovations in agriculture designed to improve the sustainability, profitability, resiliency and efficiency of the world’s food systems.
Team: MicroSoil: Rapid soil-borne pathogen testing kit
Members:
Brian Barbieri, Wageningen - MSc Biosystems Engr 'Kia Canning, UC Davis - BS Bio & Ag Engr ' 20
Kyle Cheung, UC Davis - MS Biosystems Engr ' 20
Courtney Gibson, CALS - BS Plant Science ' 22
Saeed Hosseinzadeh, CALS - PhD Plant Pathology ' 22
Anneliek ter Horst, UC Davis - PhD Plant Pathology ' 23
Team: Hummingbird: Providing precise, affordable, and actionable forecasting of plant diseases using a network of static sensors and mobile robots
Members:
Harshitha Puttalakshmamma, Engineering - MEng Engineering Management ' 20
Samjhana Khanal, Wageningen - MSc Plant Breeding & Genetics
Jeonghoon Lee, Georgia Tech - BS CompEngr ' 20
Valentin Porcellini, CiS - MEng Info Science ' 20
Brian Wang, Engineering - PhD MechE ' 21
Yiping Xie, Wageningen - MEng Biosystems Engr ' 21
Team: Brithaca: Predictive models for farmers to preemptively identify crop disease outbreaks
Members:
Ben Catania, CALS - BS AEM and Info Sci ' 23
Timothy Reeves, CALS - BS Ag Sci & Info Sci ' 21
Rong Tan, CiS - MEng CS ' 20
Natasha Valadares dos Santos, Universidade de Sao Paulo - MS Agronomy ' 21
Juliet Zhong, Engineering - MEng CS + ORIE ' 20
Team: Green Share: Facilitating urban farming by optimizing green-zoning.
Members:
Joao Otavio Araujo, Wageningen - MSc Biosystems Engr ' 21
Gustavo Crestana, Universidade de Sao Paulo - MS Genetics & Plant Breeding ' 20
Jonah Helmer, CALS - BS Plant Science ' 22
Tina Lai, NYU - MS Bioinformatics ' 20
Krishna Raju, Engineering - MEng CS ' 20
Zixiao Wang, Engineering - MEng Elec & Comp Engr ' 20
Team: Animal Bytes: Use acoustic data to infer animal health indicators and emotional states.
Members:
James Patten, CALS - BS IARD ' 20
Tavonga Tafuma, CALS - BS Info Science ' 23
Rodrigo Taipe, ENGR - BS CS ' 22
Sirui Wang, ENGR - MEng Elec & Comp Engr ' 20
Boteng Yao, ENGR - MEng Elec & Comp Engr ' 21
Jel Zhao, CALS - BS Animal Science ' 19
Team: Grass: Pasture micromanagement system enabling enhanced grazing practices
Members:
Kritika Bhargava, SC Johnson - MBA ' 20
Dmitry Gurinsky, SC Johnson - MBA ' 20
Colin Kadis, CALS - BS ANSC ' 21
Jonathan Moon, A&S - BA CS ' 21
Clara Song, Engineering - BS CS ' 21
Michael Zhang, SC Johnson - MBA ' 20
Team: CornML: A cost-effective kernel sorting machine powered by an aflatoxin classification algorithm
Members:
Dan Brody, Cooper Union- BSE Engineering ' 22
Colin Ford, ENGR - MEng Materials Sci Engr ' 20
Larissa Pereira, CiS - MEng CS ' 20
Kaveesha Shah, CiS - MEng CS ' 20
Malika Sharma, CALS - MEng Plant Biology ' 20
Chloe Siegel, CALS - PhD Plant Pathology ' 23
Team: Supply Chainsmokers: Reduce Food Wastage across Supply Chain by leveraging data with improved traceability.
Members:
Akhil Azhikodan, CiS - MEng CS ' 20
Anushka Baoni, CiS - MEng CS ' 20
Luana Johnston, CALS - PhD Microbiology ' 24
Tridaya Karuturi, ENGR - MEng Engr Mgmt ' 20
Theodoros Sofianos, Wageningen - MSc Dev & Rural Innovation
Team: VYO, an intelligent agricultural platform for small farmers around the world to learn, share and connect.
Members:
Chloe Chidera Ene, ENGR - MEng Engr Mgmt '20
Andrew Gmirkin, CALS - BS Ag Sci & Comm ' 23
Giulia Hem, Wageningen- MSc Biosystems Engr ' 21
Annum Ijaz, ENGR - MEng Engineering Mgmt ' 20
Franklin Otieno, CALS - BS CS ' 21
Lu Yang CiS - MS Info Science ' 20
Team: Drone Appraisals: A soft-ware appraisal service platform for farmers that utilizes drone technology to create aerial imagery to asses farmland value, resource capabilities, and production opportunity. Allows for the combination of physical and financial appraised valuations.
Members:
Sarrah Ali, CALS - BS Info Science ' 20
Brandt Geist, CALS - BS Plant & Ag Science ' 23
Destiny Meador, CALS - BS Plant Science & Bio ' 22
Yi Zhu, CiS - MS Applied Statistics ' 20
Team: Noobs
Our product aims to bridge the gap between farmers and consumers, reducing economic costs for both parties. By doing so, we aim to gradually reduce food waste with reduced travel times and increased product shelf life.
Members:
Ray Gong, ENGR - MEng Engineering Mgmt ' 20
Kuan-Ying Hsieh,ENGR - MEng Engr Mgmt ' 20
Chelci Lee, A&S - BS CS ' 22
Ada Luo, CALS - BS Enviro Engineering ' 23
Gordon Tran, CALS - BS EnS ' 23
Alex Yu, ENGR - MEng Materials Sci Engr ' 20
Team: We Farm, provides a decentralized food supply chain platform from farmers’ local storage to consumers’ table (P-to-P) in developing countries so that farmers can decrease storage wastage by 7% and distribution wastage by 27%.
Members:
Yucheng Jiang, CiS - MEng Info Science ' 20
Shawn Li, CiS - MEng Info Science ' 20
Qixuan Li, CiS - MS Info Science ' 20
Yuguang Li, CiS - MEng Info Sci ' 21
Bill Tang, Engineering - MEng CS ' 20
Yubo Zhang, Engineering - MEng Info Science ' 20
Team: FreshBot: Automated vehicles for farm-to-fork delivery
Members:
Madhura Bokil, CALS - MS Food Sci & Tech ' 20
Jackson Jiang, SC Johnson - MBA ' 20
Rossie Luo, CALS - MS Food science ' 20
Tianyu Ma, ENGR - PhD Elec & Comp Engr ' 22
Yujia Zhang, ENGR - PhD Applied Math ' 24
Yuchang Zhou, A&S - BA CS ' 20
Team: Food Waze: Tackling post harvest food lost during transportation from farm to market due to inadequate climate control.
Members:
Nikolaos Alfieris, Wageningen - MSc Biosystems Engr ' 21
Lucas Avancini, Universidade de Sao Paulo - BS ' 21
Leticia Carvalho de Sousa, Universidade de Sao Paulo - BS Agronomy ' 20
Nathanael Cheng,ILR - BS ' 20
Michelle Dong, ENGR - MEng Systems Engr ' 20
Team: Agcess
Access to AgTech Solutions for all farmers
Members:
Isabelle Amlicke, CALS - BS Plant Science ' 21
Ashley Bacalso, ILR - MILR ' 20
Sergio Luis Castro Junior, Universidade de Sao Paulo - PhD Biosystems Engr ' 23
Shiang-Wan Chin, ENGR - PhD Systems Engr ' 22
Irena Gao, CALS - BS Info Science ' 21
Robert van de Ven, Wageningen - MSc Biosystems Engr
Team: Wintergreens: Geothermal hydroponic greenhouses for residential customers in cold weather regions.
Members:
Austin Blais, SC Johnson - MBA ' 20
Keith Devas, SC Johnson - MBA MBA ' 20
Karl Frohlich, CALS - BS Biological Engr ' 20
Andreas Olvera, CALS - BS Plant Science ' 21
Yohan Sequeira, CALS - MEng Biological Engr ' 20
Team: Cool Beans: WebMD for farmers
Members:
Jacob Ashcraft, SC Johnson - MPS Accounting ' 20
Karl Ashkar, ENGR - MEng Materials Sci Engr ' 20
Souleiman Benhida, Engineering - BS CS ' 20
Rebecca Helling, A&S - BA CS ' 21
Abdullah Islam, Engineering - MEng CS ' 20
Siddharth Khuteta, Engineering - MEng Materials Sci Engr ' 20
Team: Coop Chain: A solution service to improve the Agriculture Co-op journey by increasing transparency, accountability, and quality of products between management and dairy farmers.
Members:
Xianyi Han, Engineering - MEng CS ' 20
Mingzhao Liu, A&S - BA CS ' 21
Sriya Sunil, CALS - PhD Food Science ' 23
Yuting Yang, A&S|| - BA math ; cs ' 20
Jeffrey Zhang, Engineering - BS CS ' 20
These verticals represent the breadth of the area covered in the 2020 Digital Ag Hackathon. Faculty from the top 5 agriculture schools in the world developed challenges in each vertical. These challenges are meant to provide teams with an accelerated start by providing context, constraints, and resources (data, research, SDKs). These faculty will be on site throughout the weekend to assist teams as needed and provide feedback and coaching.
In the near future, the strength and responsiveness of the U.S. food and agricultural system will be tested. Recent analyses have warned that as a consequence of the growing world population, agricultural production worldwide will have collective difficulty in meeting global demand for food and fiber, which is estimated to increase by 59-98 percent by 2050. Achieving the higher level of productivity needed—itself a formidable task—will not be sustainable without innovative solutions to challenges posed by shortages of arable land and water, the degradation of ecosystems, and the negative impacts of climate change.
CEA is a technology-based approach toward food production. The aim of CEA is to provide protection and maintain optimal growing conditions throughout the development of the crop. Production takes place within an enclosed growing structure such as a greenhouse or building. Aquaponics is also considered a form of CEA -- the combination of aquaculture (raising fish) and hydroponics (the soil-less growing of plants) that grows fish and plants together in one integrated system. CEA is most often used to produce high nutrient density perishable fruits and vegetables. Protein is sometimes produced, as in aquaponics
Small Holder farmers could increase farm productivity and improve their livelihoods if they have timely access to information that can help with decision-making: what to plant, when to plant, where to sell, and at what price. Often they are doing this on marginal lands, with poor water resources, and little access to tech beyond their cell phone, and while dealing with changing weather patterns and extreme climate events
One-third of all produced food is wasted -- an astounding amount considering the accelerating growth of worldwide population. As the population continues to increase, currently most prominently in Africa, it is important to improve delivery of affordable, nutritional, and safe foods. This requires careful examination of the entire food supply chain from farm to consumer, as food is wasted at all stages.
The FarmBeats Lab Kit is a solution for tracking sensor readings from the environment that can provide growers with data that empowers their decision making. The 9am workshop on Saturday will provide an overview of how to setup the kit and connect it to cloud services that will provide continuous access to sensor data for monitoring soil moisture, light levels, air temperature and humidity. We will showcase how to integrate this sensor data into the FarmBeats Public Preview cloud platform and show how to combine it with additional data from weather and satellite imagery services to provide a platform for enabling Precision Agriculture with Artificial Intelligence.
Information about the kits. Precision agriculture is one practice that helps farmers to observe, measure and respond to variabilities with the goal to optimize crops and maximize returns while preserving resources. Overview of Farm Beats and SDK Video
A variety of mentors are on site throughout the weekend to provide feedback and guidance to teams. Mentors from the sponsoring companies and visiting universities provide depth and expertise in areas of research, technology, business, and more. Formal check-ins are scheduled on saturday so that all teams have an opportunity to interact with the mentors.
Ana Del Campo Mendizabal-Cloud Solution Architect
Andrew Nelson -Farmer & Software Engineer
Elizabeth Bruce -Director
Jim Bennett -Sr Cloud Advocate
Josh Reynolds -Sr Account Exec
Kathryn Neal -Sr Director, University Relations
Mike Barbato -Account Technology Strategist
Ranveer Chandra -Chief Scientist
Stacey Wood -Sr Program Manager
Raphael Soeiro de Faria -Azure Cloud Solutions Architect
Tony Prince -Education Business Lead
Jay Templeton -Aware CPO- IoT & AI
Jourdan Templeton-Aware- CTO
Max Templeton -Aware
Lawrence Wang Director-Digital Strategy
Scott Ainslie '88, MS '91, MBA '96 -Group Director, VP at Cargill Animal Nutrition
Justin Kershaw -Corporate VP & CIO
SriRaj Kantamneni -Managing Director, Digital Insights
Taye Mohler -Digital Experience Officer
Jason Walker -Sr Enterprise Architect
Zeinab Takbiri - Sr Data Scientist
Zac Skalko -Sr Software Engineer
Amanda Malmin -Software Dev Consultant
Abhishes Lamsal Ag Meteoroligist-BASF
Lauren Junker PhD '04 -Innovation Scout- Industrial Biotechnology -BASF
Xiangming Zeng -Weather Data Scientist-BASF
Ronda Hamm -Global Academic Relations-Corteva
John Tauzel '03 MBA '12 -Director of Business Development -Dairy One
Alasdair King -Director, International Veterinary Health- Merck Animal Health
Aileen Mastouri '10 Founder -Rayy Bio
Abe Hughes -Regional Director Ag LATAM-Trimble
Scott Root Development Manager Wegmans Food Markets
Bill Strassburg Strategic Planning Wegmans Food Markets
Sarah Ploss-General Manager-Dairy Farmers of America
Steve Eicker -CoFounder -VAS (Valley Agriculture Software)
Brad Malone -Lead Data Scientist-Corteva
IoT - the internet of things, is made of two parts: the internet, and things. The things side of IoT is devices such as a small computer or microcontroller connected to sensors or other hardware. The internet side of IoT is cloud services that can control these devices or ingest and process the data gathered by the sensors.
Azure, the cloud from Microsoft, provides a whole suite of services to connect to IoT devices, ingesting data from up to billions of different devices, then allowing you to process that data the way you need to. A workshop on Friday from 3:30-4:30pm will look at the Azure IoT services, starting with IoT Central, a no-code SaaS platform that allows you to connect devices, ingest data and visualize it on a dashboard. From here we will see how to feed the data to other systems, such as storing it in a database, running real-time analytics and getting real-time insights. Finally, we’ll look at how to feed this data to pre-defined machine learning models to make predictions and use these predictions to control other devices.
Cornell Chronicle - March 5, 2020: Students swap skills to seek solutions to digital agriculture. “Modernization has created tremendous increases in food productivity, but technology has also displaced millions of people from agriculture and contributed to public health problems and ecological degradation,” said Steven Wolf, associate professor of natural resources and faculty co-lead for the event.
Daily Sun- March 2, 2020: Innovation and creativity abound in Cornell's second digital ag hackathon. “Agriculture is arguably the least digitized industry of all major industries,” said one of the event chairs, Prof. Steven Wolf, natural resources. “So there’s tremendous opportunities to bring the power of data, sensors, data analytics, and machine learning and artificial intelligence to bear.”