The tech giant will support the development of innovations, deliver lectures on artificial intelligence and provide access to training opportunities.
San Jose, 21 July 2020 (IICA) – The technology company SAP has joined IICA and the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock of Ecuador in their efforts to provide youth in the Americas with an opportunity to develop technological solutions aimed at driving the continuous operation of the agrifood chain in Ecuador, by means of a hackathon.
The goal of the activity is to address the urgent need to connect producers and consumers in Ecuador during the Covid-19 crisis, by developing innovations that would allow for maintaining the food supply under strict sanitary standards as well as fostering short marketing circuits.
SAP will assist in organizing the hackathon together with the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock of Ecuador, the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA), Cenfotec University, Syngenta and Club AgTech.
Experts from those institutions will serve as mentors to assist participants in developing a product that successfully addresses the target issue.
SAP will provide participants with access to its online learning platform and will make available the knowledge of Arnoldo Muller, who specializes in artificial intelligence.
Youth from Ecuador, Costa Rica, Mexico, Peru and Brazil have already registered for the hackathon on the website http://hackathon.iica.int. The registration period will end on 24 July.
The opening session of the hackathon, which will be chaired by ministry authorities and Manuel Otero, Director General of IICA, will be carried out on 27 July. The selected proposals will also be announced on that date.
Teams of no more than five members may participate in the hackathon. The winners will receive USD 3,500, giveaways from the organizers, and technical support from the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock of Ecuador and IICA.
The ultimate goal is to transform these solutions into tangible opportunities to link agriculture and youth, especially youth from rural areas, where there is an urgent need to bridge the digital divide.
More information:
Rodolfo Campos, IICA Representative in Ecuador
Emmanuel Picado, Manager of the Information/Communication Technologies and Digital Agriculture Division
