On the 13th and 14th of September, the Agri Tech Hack took place in Izgrev, Bulgaria. The main purpose was to attract Bulgarian tech communities to interesting agricultural use cases around technologies such as IOT, Machine Learning and Big Data. Brothers Alexander and Boris Brestnichki finished first place and received 15 thousand Bulgarian lev prize money to further develop their prototype. The two brothers competed with 10 other teams in the first 28-hour AgriTechHack.

The AgriTechHack was held at the NIK Academy with the joint effort of NIK Electronics, the Dutch embassy in Bulgaria, FarmHack.NL and the Bulgarian digital innovation hub for agriculture AgroHubBG. The hackathon was further supported by SmartAgriHubs, DSK Bank and Expressbank.

Smart Agri Hubs

SmartAgriHubs is committed to actively support regional initiatives such as workshops, seminars, conferences and hackathons to identify opportunities as input for the design and operational preparation of the open calls. This shall allow to embed or replicate such regional opportunities in the SAH ecosystem, facilitating access to a relevant network, sponsor and funding opportunities. As one of those regional initiatives, SmartAgriHubs supported the Agri Tech Hackathon, both by providing guidance and support, as through the allocation of € 10,000 for the best solutions developed in the scope of the hackathon. 

Winners: Team 'ONE'

Team One grabbed the grand prize of the first ever AgroHakaton in Bulgaria. The "ONE" project is a web-based platform that can be used, in particular via a mobile app, to track the origin and quality of foods, including their ingredients. The project uses Big Data technology and automation, and will integrate Blockchain validation in the future. Brothers Alexander and Boris Brestnichki receive a cash prize of BGN 15,000. 

Second place: team 'Tecnologica'

The second prize of 5000 Bulgarian lev was won by the TechnoLogica team, which was formed by 7 IT specialists who had developed an open source tool for collecting information from agricultural machines. Based on the collected data, the tool then provides analytical information about how the machine has been used, for example by indicating when and for how long a tractor has been in the field. The purpose of this tool is to help farmers make the right decisions on the farm.

Third Place: Team 'BeVine'

The jury of the AgriTechHack awarded third place to the team "BeVine", consisting of four software engineers, for their mobile app project that manages to assess the health status of vines. The project is intended to support agronomists and winemakers through a software analysis that can provide structured information. Hardware devices are strategically placed to receive information, which is then processed through artificial intelligence for prediction and analysis. In addition to a cash prize of 2000 leva, the team also received the fifth prize in the competition, with which BeVine can participate in the upcoming Life Sciences hack hackathon on  of Wageningen University / WUR Life Science FarmHacK /

Fourth place: Team 'The Bees'

Team"The Bees" finished fourth on the AgriTechHack: five programmers working on a digital system for detecting deviations and early forwarding of reports to beekeepers, collecting information in a database via beehives and weather stations. As a prize, this team are given the opportunity to submit their idea to the Bulgarian Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Forestry. The jury took this decision because the project of "The Bees" can offer a solution to a current problem that the Bulgarian state has been trying to solve for some time.

Jury

The jury, consisting of five members, judged the participants of the first AgroHackathon in Bulgaria based on criteria developed with the help of a representative of Smart Agri Hubs. The jury consisted of Ivo Kumanov - Manager of NIK Electronics, Svetlana Boyanova - founder of the Bulgarian digital innovation hub for agriculture AgroHub.BG, Svetlin Nakov - founder and motor within 'Software University', an innovative and modern education center that prepares true professionals for the programming world, Arie Veldhuzen, agricultural council at the Dutch embassy in Bulgaria - the initiator of the event and Milen Vlaev - Head of 'Agrobusiness' at DSK bank.

For more information: please visit the dedicated AgriTech category on the Farmhack Forum.