This project idea is to develop an intelligent bugs mapping and wiping (iBMW) robot to perform pest population spatial distribution and “surgical precision spraying” for pest wipeout. The iBMW is an affordable (less than $1,000) robot-driven robot, which has a Turtlebot 3 as the robot’s brain and an unmanned ground vehicle serving as the work platform. Based on the design, the robot will be able to recognize and classify the Navel orangeworm by using deep learning neural networks. In addition, several iBMWs can work in the field together in swarming mode day and night, so that it can realize temporal and spatial bug mapping. As a result, mapping can determine which areas are at the greatest risk and whether wiping treatment is needed by iBMWs.
Track: Food and Agriculture
Our Campus Kitchen
At UC Berkeley, student food insecurity is rampant while food waste is pervasive. Between expensive meals eating out and emergency provision at the Food Pantry, thousands of students are left without a consistent, affordable food option while Cal Dining and the campus gardens are flush with unused food that’s unable to be reliably processed and distributed. Meanwhile, the Berkeley Student Food Collective has pioneered a student-run food waste recovery program that focuses on addressing food insecurity using a sustainable business model in a kitchen that’s too small to scale. Our Campus Kitchen and retail café will operate as the hub of a new paradigm for campus food: a volunteer-operated, student-run kitchen that would engage students in food education, community service, and food business.
Livestock Disease Diagnosis Kit
Proper disease diagnosis for livestock is essential in determining the suitable treatment, but diagnosis is a challenge for farmers who have limited access to veterinary laboratories and services. To solve this challenge, the Livestock Disease Diagnosis (LIDDIA) team has developed a point-of-care (POC) diagnostic kit to help farmers conduct routine checkups for early and timely treatment. The LIDDIA Kit is based on microscopic principles for hardware and mHealth technology to support the software running the device. The microscopy hardware operates on a smartphone through the LIDDIA app that is made up of a database containing standard images for pre-determined samples that are used as reference images to perform an image match.
ArboSol
Current farming practices are degrading soil at a rate of 75,000 acres per day, with about a third of global soil considered severely degraded and the remaining projected to last only 60 years. By reducing agricultural productivity, soil degradation is responsible for a global annual economic loss of $27.3-billion. ArboSol addresses this problem locally–in California’s San Joaquin Valley (SJV)–where soil degradation is anticipated to cost California $3-billion in annual revenue and up to 64,000 jobs by 2030. ArboSol uses a novel sunlight-powered desalination to remove salts from saline agricultural drainage; producing a high-purity water that can be reused for irrigation. Through a leasing model, ArboSol will partner with corporations operating in the SJV to collect salts for resale. By implementing ArboSol on a large scale (15% of agricultural fields in the SJV), the effects of soil salinization can be reversed, while producing $59-million worth of salt each year.
TRAM project
Smallholder farmers in low resource settings are forced to sell their crops at low prices shortly after harvest to avoid post-harvest losses, which results in low agricultural financial gains and lack of food security among farming households. A proven solution is the use of metallic silos for long-term storage of crops with less than 1% loss from pests or any other form of degradation. The TRAM project proposes to increase the distribution of metal silos among Ugandan smallholder farmers through an innovative business model that allows the farmer to get the silo at a low initial cost and complete payments through monthly installments. This project has the potential to provide safe food storage systems to 6 million households in Uganda alone and spread to the East African community and other countries in sub-Saharan Africa.
Acarí
Acarí takes the hated and feared invasive armored catfish or ‘devil fish’ as it is colloquially known in Mexico and transforms it into tasty, nutritious food products to increase employment in rural fishing communities and provide a healthy, sustainable alternative to beef jerky. To Acarí, the devil fish is much more than an invasive ‘trash fish’; it is an opportunity to improve the livelihoods of marginalized fishermen across Mexico. Though the devil fish has perplexed politicians and development professionals for nearly two decades, Acarí considers it to be a marketing problem first and foremost and has begun to develop the sales channels and supply chain to effectively transform the devil fish from plague to a protein-packed snack that makes their customers say, “Quiero más.”
OrganicMatters
The US egg industry generates roughly 44,000 tons of poultry manure every day. This waste is a significant contributor to water and air quality pollution. As the egg industry is concentrated in localized regions around the country, current manure management strategies have led to over-fertilization of nearby cropland. To avoid these problems, OrganicMatters dries manure at the site of poultry production to maximize nutrient preservation. Dry manure is then transported to a central facility where it is processed into a stable pellet that can easily integrate into the existing fertilizer market. OrganicMatters can increase the feasibility of manure use as a fertilizer for organic farmers. Our product can meet the demand of diverse agricultural customers across a wide range of crops and applications. Appropriately dried poultry manure is a very balanced, high nutrient fertilizer that satisfies both conventional agriculture and the organic sector.
Roach Protein
This project aims to produce of an alternative protein feed additive from farmed Periplaneta Americana cockroaches. This protein will be a direct substitute to the fishmeal protein that is currently used in poultry, piggery, and aquaculture feed formulation in Uganda and East Africa. Cockroach is an alternative insect protein source, which can sustainably be reared and produced by commercial feed producers and potentially at household level in Uganda. According to studies, Cockroach protein has been measured to be between 62%-65% protein on a dry matter basis which is comparable to silverfish at 65%. Having an alternative to the expensive fishmeal protein additive to feeds will directly increase the profitability of the poultry, piggery at households and commercially. Feed costs are the major costs within the poultry, piggery and aquaculture production chain.
Tech+SEAfood
There exists gross demoralizations in the seafood system in the US- 43% of US wild caught seafood is exported, 90% of seafood consumed in the US is imported , 60% of imports being inferior, unstandardized aquaculture, and 30% illegally imported. This project envisions a Tech+SEAfood solution for alternative seafood marketing networks (ASN) to improve efficiency, profitability, communication, and traceability in seafood distribution. Project demand has been researched and vetted with seafood supply chain practitioners. The team aims to improve the timeliness and transparency of supply and demand data as well as improve decision making for mission driven distributors about when, where, and how much seafood should be sold and to whom.