AgTechUCD, in collaboration with the Ludgate Hub and AgriTech Ireland, hosted an Agri Ideation event for over 80 farmers, ag industry professionals, researchers, and students. Through a facilitated event with mini workshops, participants were divided into 10 teams and given a challenge on an issue facing the agricultural sector, which they worked on over the course of the day, narrowing it down to one solution per team. Each team pitched their solution to a Judging Panel, which selected one overall winning pitch.
Hazel Peavoy, Senior Strategic Business Partner in Agriculture at Walton Institute and Site Manager at Walton Institute and SETU for VistaMilk, was invited to join the judging panel for the Farms of the Future event. Hazel’s knowledge in the agri sector stretches across agricultural actors in Ireland and Europe on a variety of projects, including Smart Agri Hubs, a €20 million EU Horizon 2020 project that brings together a consortium of over 164 partners in the European agri-food sector with the goal of realising Europe’s agricultural digitisation.
Proposed methodologies
The event’s goal was to identify challenges in the agricultural sector and then propose methodologies for developing a robust solution through facilitator and team-based exercises. It was open to those in the agri-food sector, the farming community, students, academics, and anyone interested in innovation, sustainability, and problem-solving, particularly in agriculture.
The workshop began with team-building activities to connect each team before progressing to various steps to mature and rethink assigned team challenges. The facilitators assisted each team in exploring agri-related issues, such as why these problems exist, analysing existing solutions, resolving problems, and finally developing a pitch to present to the Judges.
The workshop’s winner
Team 4 was the winner of the Farms of the Future workshop by developing a solution to make farms safer. Mary Kate, Claudia, Caroline Platt, and students from Skibbereen and Bandon Secondary Schools devised a creative pitch, which resulted in the judges selecting their solution. The winning team’s innovative solution, dubbed ‘Safety Smart,’ included the use of a number of sensors placed throughout a farm to detect hazardous areas that required additional attention. The solution was to address the issue of farm safety and accidents.
