The University of Saskatchewan is taking an interdisciplinary approach to agricultural innovation.
Emerging Agriculture, a three-day hackathon planned for Jan. 9-11, will bring together students from engineering, computer science and agricultural backgrounds so that they can come up with new and innovative technologies for agriculture.
“The goal is to foster some collaboration between a bunch of different students from all the colleges across campus here in Saskatoon, as well as our goal is to attract other colleges from across Canada,” said Rory Nussbaumer, chair of the hackathon planning committee.
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Last year’s hackathon was in November, but this year it will be held in conjunction with the Crop Production Show in Saskatoon, which will be held January 11-14.
“It’s the weekend right before Crop Production Show and we partnered with them to offer admission to see all of their speakers, events and it just allows people from out of town to create a lot more networking opportunities,” Nussbaumer said.
The event will start with a pitch meeting on the evening of Jan. 9, in which groups of three to six people will be formed. The groups will then hack for the rest of the night.
Jan. 10 will be dedicated to hacking with a mini case competition, and Jan. 11 the students will finish up their projects and present them to the judges.
“It’s a really long three days but it’s a lot of fun,” Nussbaumer said.
The top prizes for the weekend include consulting work from companies in Saskatoon as well as trophies.
The hackathon is open to students, industry professionals and spectators.
Anyone with an idea for new technology for the hackathon can log onto Emerging Agriculture’s website and post it on the idea wall. These ideas will then be installed on an actual four by six foot wall, which is currently located at a variety of high traffic areas on the university campus. Following the hackathon it will be displayed at Emerging Agriculture’s booth at the Crop Production Show.
The hackathon is also meant to be a networking event, and this year the planning committee has added more opportunities.
Last year’s event left a lasting impression on participants.
Erik Tetland, a U of S physics major, was on last year’s winning team, which made an indoor mini greenhouse that can completely take care of itself.
“It was solving the problem of people who don’t know how to grow plants but want to grow plants in their house,” Tetland said.
He found the networking aspect of the hackathon beneficial.
“All in all it’s just a good place to kind of talk to the right people to understand what the industry is like and what’s going on,” Tetland said.
ashley.robinson@producer.com
