Program developers, engineers, and other IT professionals joined forces with owners and top managers of agricultural holdings, farmers, representatives of government agencies, educators, investment bankers and venture capitalists, and other experts involved in the process of bringing on information technologies to the Ukrainian agricultural sector.
Guests arrived to Ternopil from many cities of Ukraine: Kiev, Odessa, Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv, Vinnytsia, Lviv, Lutsk, Rivne, Chernivtsi.
The main purpose of the event - to popularize the trend of world development AgTech in Ukraine and attracting national IT community to the development of innovative, high-performance and low-cost products to address how the current problems of farmers, as well as global challenges in all of agriculture.
The development of innovative IT products to have taken part more than 50 programmers and developers who are united in a cohesive 8 teams competed for the prize money of 20 000 USD, and for the right to introduce their ideas and developments in agricultural production agricultural holding “Agroprodservis.”
The jury evaluated the projects, which included 10 experts from various fields: from the representatives of the agricultural sector up to the investment business, among them:
Yuri Tymoshchuk – Agroprodservis
Yuri Gavrilyuk – Zernotrader
Valeriy Yakovenko– Drone.ua
Andrew Oleksyuk – 1C Voloshin
Irina Tytarchuk – National Agrarian University
Yulia Nehoda – National Agrarian University
Alexey Oleynikov – InVenture Investment Group
Oleg Napora – Ternopil Regional State Administration
Sergey Dovgopolyi – inVenture Investment Group FeelGoodLabs
Alexander Matsyuk – Ternopil National Technical University named after Ivan Pulyui
On the basis of project evaluation the majority of judges voted the winner second place went to the project Easy Dashboard, and the third place - Petiol.
FarmFactor
Place / score: 1 / 726
Problem: Lack of timely access to critical data on the business processes in agricultural companies
Solution:
What they done: to develop a functional solution
What was required: Professional advice and project financing
Project monetization: Paid access to the application
Project team:
Maxim Grischuk (developer)
Vladislav Golubev (developer)
Michael Rokosz (developer)
Nikolai Striletsky (developer)
Taras Dolinyuk (developer)
Vladimir Tymets (developer)
Zorian Yaremko (economist)
Easy Dashboard
Place / score: 2 / 715
Problem: Lack of comprehensive statistics and measurement data represented in a clear, relevant and intuitive manner
Solution: The system data processing, analysis and output in a user-friendly manner with the ability to customize the interface and settings
What has been done: The dynamic mockup, dynamic module KPI, backend and frontend functionality
What is needed: business partner for the test system implementation and project financing
Project Monetization: SaaS
Project team:
Taras Kovalchuk (business development) / Ternopil, Kiev
Andrew Boboshko (product manager) / Odessa
Ilya Fedorovich (frontend) / Ternopol
Ostap Pirog (backend) / Ternopol
Anna Glushchenko (sales manager) / Kiev
Nadezhda Panchuk (content manager) / Ternopol
Petiol
Place / score: 3 / 715
Problem: Access to analytical data on productivity, business processes and agricultural conditions
Solution: The use of mobile application for field measurements and access to data cloud service to make information-driven decisions
What has been done: tested the concept with market experts, identified three key issue areas, and created a prototype solution addressing these three problems
What is required: feedback from potential users of the product, detailed plan for the phased introduction of the product, search for business partners and investors
Monetization Project: Monthly and seasonal subscription for the data cloud service provider. Free use of mobile application.
Project team:
Andrei Seleznyov (implementation of conceptual solutions)
Marina Kuzmenko (prototyping)
Vitali Mocharsky (completion of mobile applications for the measurement of leaf area, stabilization, data transfer capabilities when there’s no access to the Internet)
AgroAnalytics
Place/score: 4 / 606
Problem: financial analytics and forecast of the business
Solution: Agro-Calculator
What has been done: the idea evolved through the concept into a presentation
What is necessary: Develop the interface, develop and populate the database
Project Monetization: paid support and IT consulting
Project team:
Mikhail Danilchenko (Business analyst)
Denis Koshetar (organizational matters, participation in the generation of ideas) / Chernivtsi
Nazar Ivantsov
Boris Bardish
Andrey Tatomir
Reforms
Place/Score: 5/519
Problem: Profit forecasting and loss planning in the agricultural enterprise
Solution: A software product to generate reports needed to calculate key financial indicators
What has been done: identified main factors that influence the income and expenses of agricultural enterprises
What is required: Develop the software product
Product Monetization: paid simulator for education and training purposes in the enterprise
Project team:
Maxim Clement (ideas generator) / Kiev
Irina Boychenko (finance specialist) / Kiev
Mariana Truseeva (agricultural market analyst) / Kiev
Elizaveta Belyaeva (finance specialist) / Kiev
Maxim Ivanov (IT Specialist) / Kiev
Cogent
Place/score: 6/501
Problem: Unpredictable breakdowns and inefficient use of agricultural machinery
Solution: Use automated big data analysis to predict the failure of machinery and implement preventive measures
What has been done: data assimilation, initial data processing, and initial analysis to find the coefficient of mechanical deterioration
What is needed: building the project team, project financing
Project Monetization: direct sales to businesses which will benefit from reduced cost of repairs and more efficient fuel consumption
Project team:
Taras Dolinskiy (developer, Team leader, analyst)
Victor Molitsky (developers, analysts)
Irina Mikolyuk (developer)
Andrei Stefanov (developers, analysts)
Vita Ornatovsky (consultant)
Christina Lisa (consultant)
Tatiana Pauk (assistant)
Natalia Meyer (Project Manager)
Agromonitor
Place/score: 7/492
Problem: quick access to information on sowing
The solution: an information resource populated by the participants of the agricultural market
What has been done: the development of the presentation, initial phases of building the web resource
What is needed: building the project team, research on experts, support from the government institutions
Monetization Project: paid subscription to advanced features and full information
Project team:
Michael Andrey Tatomir (idea generator of ideas, the development of the back-end-model) / Lviv
Andrey Danilchenko (business analyst, idea generator, developer) / Lviv
Nazar Ivantsov (presentation creation, monetization model development) / Lviv
Denis Koshetar (management, preparation of the presentation, team building, idea analyst) / Chernivtsi
Boris Bard (development of front-end usability) / Lviv
At the opening of the Hackaton InVenture spoke to some of the participants about whether this event was timely and what is the outlook of agricultural market in Ukraine.
“Agro IT Booster Hackathon signals the emergence of a new trend in the Ukrainian economy, the agricultural technology, which improves the efficiency of the countrys agriculture thanks to the use of information technologies,” said Alexey Oleynikov, the managing partner at InVenture Investment Group, “Landmark venture funds globally are just beginning to show interest to agricultural technology. For example, Google Ventures is investing heavily in the new projects in this area. In this context, Ukraine has all chances to discover a new vector of development as it has high potential in the agricultural sector as well as in the IT field”.
"We tried to organize something different from what has already been done in Ukraine,” added Vladimir Buriy, founder of coworking and startup incubator Evolution Continuum, “In fact, we have created an industry-focused Hackathon where IT and agro perfectly complemented each other. Also, we have shown that Ukraine has its own profile investors who are willing to finance important Ukrainian IT projects that are very. This way, IT product market can be seen in a different way. We are able to establish the truly national IT product when we have our own market for new technologies."
According to Ivan Chaykivskiy, the founder of Agroprodservis, who was also the main partner and sponsor of the event: "The agricultural business is taking a leading role in the country’s economy and its goods account for a large share in the national export. So we need new, creative, high-tech solutions in the agriculture. IT technologies is the business of tomorrow. We are looking forward to more helpful projects from members of the current and future agrohackatons and we are ready to use their solutions in real life. "
Andrew Kopylchak, technical director of Nexus, said: "The event turned out to be quite interesting. This is a great success that we attracted the attention of IT professionals to the agricultural industry. This event also benefits Ternopil, because first of all it is an agricultural land and we noted interest from representatives of local agricultural businesses. We presented interesting technological solutions and we are particularly pleased with the team Petriole even though they did not win the first place. FarmFactor team provided a ready-made solution that can be applied to other economy sectors."
"First Ukrainian Agrarian Innovation Hackathon is a unique event in our country,” said Sergei Dovgopolyi, the Chief Technical Officer of InVenture Investment Group, “In the past, only some lonely crazies could try to sit these two industries at one table. We gave it a shot and got together more than 100 participants from all over Ukraine. And this was not in Kiev or Dnepropetrovsk, this was in Ternopil. The event was great. We have already heard that there is an interest in holding an agricultural Hackaton in Dnepropetrovsk. There is also a clear interest to the winning solutions from the side of the farmers. "
"The event was organized on a very good level,” said Oleg Napora, the director of the Department of Agriculture and Food in the Ternopil Regional State Administration, “Despite the fact that not so many teams participated in the Hackathon, we managed to address almost all the problems in agricultural business. It is also interesting to hear the ideas from people who are not associated with agribusiness, who are open-minded and see the problems of the industry and business in their own way. And another positive factor is that we united people from different sectors, who listened to each other and joined forces to address the critical issues such as uniting the state with the business, and IT sector with farmers. "
Yuri Gavrilyuk, representative of grain trading company Zernotrade, confirmed: "This event is very important for the industry because farmers in most cases have vague understanding of IT, same way as developers do not know the problems of agrarian industry. What’s important, participants were completely different. There were students who are just delve into the specifics of the business as well as mature professionals who have their own solutions but they lacked input from mentors or support from programmers.”
"This event is very important for us and we plan implement some of the solutions in our company,” said Yuri Tymoshchuk, an analyst at agricultural holding Agroprodservis, “At the moment, we are actually interested in a few projects. At the end of the event, we will contact the teams and hopefully we can get together to discuss the practical implementation of their projects.”
General sponsor of the event: Agroprodservis Corporation
Media support was provided by Agribusiness Today, Agrarian week, iHUB, TIM (Telecom, IT, Media), Investment Portal InVenture, UAngel, Lviv IT Cluster (IT Arena), Unicorn Systems, BrainBasket Foundation, OK Factory, Startup Depot, and Meet Professionals.
Technical support was provided by Nexus, Intertelecom, Columbus, Dron.ua
The organizers of the event were Vladimir Buriy, (Coworking Evolution, startup incubator Continuum), Victor Kompaniets (Digital Future), Alexey Oleynikov (InVenture Investment Group), Sergei Dovgopolyi (InVenture Investment Group and FeelGoodLabs), Sergei Savchishin (eMagicOne), Oksana Semeniuk (eMagicOne ), Maria Zagirskaya (E-volution).
