The Agri-Hack Talent initiative is gradually taking shape in the Caribbean. Following the selection of challenges that the applications to be developed will address, and the selection of partners/hubs for the competition, the first national hackathon event kicked off in Suriname.
The national hackathon event
On 23rd August 2014, and Telesur organised a hackathon entitled “hackaton v2.0.14” in Suriname. 38 participants, divided into 7 teams took part in this coding competition and the challenge was to develop applications in 24 hours.
This hackathon had 2 components; it was the second edition of the annual national hackathon event that IT Core and Telesur initiated in Suriname in 2013, and it also incorporated the national hackathon event of the Agri-Hack Talent Caribbean, organised by CTA and various partners. For this reason, one of the categories for which applications had to be developed was Agriculture (other categories were: Education, Health and Welfare, Traffic and Transport, Crime and Security).
The winners
“Unicode”, a team of young hackers were proclaimed winners of the Surinamese hackathon on 24th August, after competing for one full day to develop the best application. The winning application developed by the team is called “Agri Kari”.
As reward, the winner received a cheque of USD 1,500 and all the 38 participants received a certificate and a package from the main sponsor Telesur.
The winning application “Agri Kari”
Agri Kari is an application that enables farmers to bring their products directly to the buyer. The developers have built a marketplace, whereby the buyers can place their orders. Apart from just being a platform for exchanging goods, the application also enables users to exchange information on agriculture. This can be related to marketing or advise on the purchase of products for managing pests and diseases in the field.
The application is currently web-based, but will be available on tablets and phones at a later stage.
Unicode to represent Suriname at CWA
The regional finals of the Agri-Hack Talent Caribbean competition will take place from 4 – 10 October 2014 in Suriname during the Caribbean Week of Agriculture (CWA). Unicode will be representing Surinamese team with their application Agri-Kari.
At the regional finals, the teams will receive coaching, mentorship and valuable feedback from experts in the field of ICT and agriculture. They will also have the opportunity to network with participants present at the event.
All the national team winners will also have to pitch and present their final products in front of participants attending the Caribbean Week of Agriculture and the overall winner will be selected there by the jury.
Following the regional finals of the competition, the winners will be incubated by hubs for coaching, mentorship and fine-tuning their products.
Further updates on the Agri-Hack Talent Caribbean will be posted on this blog. Stay tuned!
Information on the Hackathon in Suriname adapted from this article
More on the Agri-Hack Talent initiative here: http://hackathon.ict4ag.org/
More on the Suriname Hackathon here:
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