Rural India Business Conclave: AgriTechHackaton at CPCRI from Thursday

KASARGOD:
Kerala Startup Mission (KSUM) and Central Plantation Crops Research Institute (CPCRI) are set to start off a two-day Rural-AgriTechHackathon tomorrow (Thursday), seeking to provide six major breakthroughs, ahead of a June 11-12 Rural India Business Conclave (RIBC 2.0) in this city.

The June 9-10 Hackathon will deal with matters such as application of robotics in grafting, detecting aberration for standard value of fat content in solid food products, appropriate tempering of chocolate, detecting maturity of coconut (tender or/and mature) from ground, regulating drip-irrigation based on daily weather and soil conditions and locating blockage in drippers, and an exclusive platform to map the local tourism destinations, regional cultural and art-forms and locally-made products along with a marketplace that facilitates visiting tourists to order/buy products made by the villagers.

Registrations can be made at https://startupmission.in/rural_business_conclave/.

Being held in the run-up to RIBC 2.0, the Hackathon at Wintouch Palm Meadows here will promote innovative technical solutions that can contribute to the country’s agricultural growth. Aiming to derive technical solutions for agriculture sector and develop technologies that benefit tourism possibilities of rural India, the two-day event will see the participation of students from technology sector, researchers and startups besides professionals.

There will be a contest for best technical solutions.The winners, who present prototypes based on their ideas, will be awarded Rs 50,000 as cash prize. They will also be eligible to directly pitch the idea to secure KSUM’s innovation grant of Rs 12 lakh. Moreover, participants with the best solutions relating to agriculture, including food production, will get an opportunity to take forward their research in association with CPCRI and eventually convert the ideas into commercially viable products.

The inaugural 2020 edition of the conclave gained national attention for providing a platform for its country-wide delegates along with experts and startup entrepreneurs. This year’s top participants include investors such as Startup India, besides Social Alpha and institutions such as Central University of Kerala, LBS Engineering College and Kerala Agriculture College of Kasaragod district.

‘Ways to make use of technology for the growth of rural India’ will be the theme of the June 11-12 summit, which will see Bengaluru-based venture development incubator Social Alpha pitching for providing financial aid to five Kerala startups that make products with a social influence.

KSUM is the nodal agency of the Kerala government for entrepreneurship development and incubation activities in the state.