This past weekend AIFS held the 2nd Annual Apps for Food and Ag Hackathon! Under the direction of Christine Diepenbrock, this 3-day event is a tremendous opportunity for University of California, Davis students to participate in building an app to address challenges in the areas of food systems and Ag tech. Leading off with an inspirational keynote from Rikin Gandhi, CEO of Digital Green, students learned about Farmer.CHAT- an Ag chatting app used in India by women and small farmers in their native languages, and available at a significantly lower price point.

Three themes were selected for the hackathon, and the teams picked one and then built their app. This year's themes were: 1) Food Systems and Supply Chain Resiliency, 2) AI Driven Food Systems to Improve Human Health, and 3) Climate Adaptation and Sustainability. Special thanks to our mentors who met with the teams and provided real-world feedback and context for their projects. Mentors included David Henning, Lukas Maximilian Masopust, Steve Brown, Mbaye Modou, Mostafa Shokrof, Daniel Frea, and Ali Moghimi.

On Sunday afternoon, the teams presented their Apps to a team of distinguished judges, including Rikin Gandhi, Gail Taylor, Claudia Carter, MS, Lisa Tell, and Harold Schmitz. AIFS is so grateful for the support and collaboration from leaders in the industry!

This year's winners were:
Larger teams:
1st place: Goldilocks (image-based detection of vegetable size distributions to inform harvest timing)
2nd place: Respirer (blockchain-based CO2 emissions tracking)

Smaller teams:
1st place: harvest.trace (tracking produce through the supply chain for precision recall; Food Safety Modernization Act)
2nd place: SavePlate (food waste reduction)

Photos below of winning teams, judges, keynote speaker, and student groups working together.