GivingGarden wins top prize in Apps for Ag hackathon

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From left, GivingGarden team members GivingGarden team members are Scott Kirkland, Josh Livni, Deema Tamimi and John Knoll.

A gardening and produce-sharing app took top prize in the Apps for Ag hackathon, after contestants pitched judges at the California State Fair in Sacramento on Sunday (July 17). 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.

From left, Sense and Protect's Anthony Johnson, (Rina) Dhrubajyoti Das, Peter Swanson and Alex Avalos with ANR CIO Gabriel Youtsey.

From left, Sense and Protect's Anthony Johnson, with Rina DiMare of the California State Fair, Dhrubajyoti Das, Peter Swanson and Alex Avalos with ANR CIO Gabriel Youtsey.

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.

Second place was awarded to Sense and Protect, a mobile task-management app that connects to climate sensors to protect farmworkers' health and enhance their productivity. Sense and Protect team members Dhrubajyoti Das, Alex Avalos, Anthony Johnson and Peter Swanson share $4,500.

Third place went to ACP STAR System, a geo and temporal database and platform for tracking Asian citrus psyllid and other invasive pests. Team members Mark Takata and Chinh Lam share $2,500.

The top three teams will also receive complimentary startup incorporation services valued at $2,200 from Royse Law.

ACP STAR System team members Mark Takata and Chinh Lam, DiMare and Youtsey.

Compostable, which finished in fourth place, is an app and “Internet of Things” (IoT) device that diverts food waste from landfills and turns it into fertilizer and fuel so that it can be used on a farm. Sohail Khan, Nathan Azevedo, Brandon Jack, Regan King and Raheela Khan make up the Compostable team.

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 Apps for Ag hackathon, which was sponsored by UC Agriculture and Natural Resources, the California State Fair and the City of Sacramento, brought together software developers, designers, entrepreneurs, farmers and others who work in agriculture.

From left, Compostable team members Raheela Khan, Sohail Khan, Dimare, Nathan Azevedo, Regan King, Brandon Jack and Youtsey.

Compostable team members Regan King, Brandon Jack, DiMare, Nathan Azevedo, Raheela Khan, Sohail Khan and Youtsey.

“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 Glenda Humiston, University of California vice president for agriculture and natural resources.

“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.

For more information about Apps for Ag, visit http://www.apps-for-ag.com.