The Apps for Ag hackathon, which was spearheaded by Gabe Youtsey, chief information officer, brought software developers, designers, entrepreneurs, farmers and others who work in agriculture to the ANR building for a weekend to create apps to address agricultural issues.
The first place team, GivingGarden, took home $7,500 in prize money, custom rodeo belt buckles and a six-month, top-tier membership to the AgStart Incubator in Woodland.
The hyper-local, produce-sharing app provides gardening advice from the UC Master Gardener Program and enables backyard gardeners to connect with others who want to share their produce. The GivingGarden team members are Scott Kirkland, Josh Livni, Deema Tamimi and John Knoll.
UC IPM's Mark Takata and Chinh Lam split $2,500 for third place for their ACP STAR System, a geo and temporal database and platform for tracking Asian citrus psyllid and other invasive pests.
The top three teams will also receive complimentary startup incorporation services valued at $2,200 from Royse Law.
All of the participating teams had about 48 hours to develop their apps. Teams that were interested were offered $500 in “cloud credits” to build their solutions and host them on Amazon Web Services' platform. Teams also had access to an IoT kit to incorporate connected devices into their solution.
The top four teams pitched their apps to judges in front of a live audience at the California State Fair.
The event was sponsored by UC Agriculture and Natural Resources, the California State Fair and the City of Sacramento.
“It's really important for UC ANR to be involved in app development because as farmers and natural resource managers face ever-increasing challenges – climate change, invasive pests, the need to conserve water – technology is one of the ways to find solutions,” said VP Glenda Humiston.
“Using technology we can find better ways to reduce pesticide use, increase irrigation efficiency, reduce travel into the fields, manage people better, and deal with the fact that we have a huge labor shortage in this state,” said Humiston, who served as one of the Apps for Ag judges.
The other judges included University of California Chief Information Officer Tom Andriola, USDA Chief Data Officer Bobby Jones, and Better Food Ventures and Mixing Bowl Hub founder Rob Trice.
Anyone who is interested in the Qualtrics survey system is welcome to participate. The hour-long webinar will start at 10 a.m.
To join the webinar, visit this link: https://uc-d.adobeconnect.com/_a841422360/ca4-ha.
To access the call-in line, dial 1 (866) 740-1260, then enter the passcode 7524783#.
If you miss the live event, it will be recorded and available on the 4-H webinar archive page at http://ucanr.edu/sites/CA4-HA/PD/Webinar_Series.
You can now use the ANR URL squisher tool for Qualtrix surveys to create a shorter link.
- Author: Jodi Azulai
Those of you with access to the UC Learning Centers at UC Davis or UC Berkeley have free access to thousands of books online from Books 24x7.
Search, browse and view the full contents of thousands of IT and business books online. Books24x7 offers a self-paced learning tool, which provides immediate answers to your questions. This web-based platform enables you to:
- read the contents of the entire collection
- place books on a personal bookshelf
- create bookmarks
- take notes and collaborate with colleagues
- access it from your desktop computer or a mobile device
- filter your search
Books 24x7 adds new titles every day so that you have access to the latest technical and business trends and strategies on topics such as project management, programming languages, operating systems, time management, communication strategies, security, web development, leadership and so much more.
To find Books 24X7, log in at http://lms.ucdavis.edu for UC Davis or UC Berkeley.
UC Merced and UC Riverside Learning Centers do not provide Books24X7.
For more information, contact Jodi Azulai, learning and development coordinator, at (530) 750-1239 or jlazulai@ucanr.edu.
Colleagues,
To improve the working climate for UC staff, you may recall that earlier this year President Napolitano formed a working group to help address abusive behavior and bullying. In the attached letter, President Napolitano reminds us that the University does not tolerate abusive conduct or bullying.
In addition to clarifying policies regarding bullying, the Presidential Guidance provides best practices with regard to bullying prevention, the identification of abusive conduct in the workplace, and the resources available to staff when such incidents arise.
Please read President Napolitano's letter, which is attached, and the attachment containing her Presidential Guidance and the working group's report.
If you experience abusive conduct or bullying, please contact the ANR Human Resources Employee and Labor Relations team: Robert Martinez, at (530) 752-3467 or ramartinez@ucanr.edu, or Mary Roberts at (530) 750-1321 or maroberts@ucanr.edu.
John Fox
Executive Director of Human Resources
Presidential Guidelines
Letter to Chancellors et al.
- Author: Jodi Azulai
What can equip you to better serve your Cooperative Extension community? The Ohio State University extension educator Jami Dellifield and program assistant Amanda Raines believe that mental health awareness is a critical tool. View the hour-long eXtension webinar they gave on June 22, 2016 to find out
- What mental health is
- Mental health statistics
- Your role as an Extension professional
- How to discuss without offending
- Referral resources
The reason it matters to your work is that people in your community with mental health problems and the people closest to them don't always know how to ask for help.
For more information:
Awareness of Mental Health Issues Increasingly Important for Extension Professionals (eXtension)
www.mentalhealth.gov (federal website)
Mental Health, Yours, Mine, Ours (University of Minnesota)