AgFirst Farm Credit Bank is one of the four banks in the Farm Credit System. One particular demographic that the Farm Credit System works to serve is the YBS market: Young (35 and younger), Beginning (10 years farming experience or less), and Small ($350,000 annual revenue or less) farmers, ranchers and aquaculture producers (going forward “farmers” includes all these).
Several members of the AgFirst Executive Committee have asked me to develop a hackathon that we would sponsor at selected universities. The focus of the hackathon will be on YBS so improving / innovating open-source software like farmOS is a great fit. I had an initial call with Mike Stenta already and he was incredibly helpful, also the reason for this post.
The hackathon is still in the very early stages of planning. The current plan is for the hackathon to be virtual and to take place in September, allowing students to get acclimated to their courses. The current proposed timeframe is September 20 – 22, 2024 (Fri – Sun) with a possible week of optional workshops during the preceding week. Nothing, not even the date, has been finalized so I am very open to ideas.
We want to maximize the contribution of the hackathon to 1) YBS farmers, 2) student development, and 3) open-source community. The overall theme of the hackathon is Agriculture 4.0 which a widely-used term to describe this fourth wave of transformation based on the application of modern technologies like AI/ML, Robotics, Sensors, Digital Twins, etc.). For those who are interested in more details of Agriculture 4.0, I recommend Agriculture 4.0 – The Future Of Farming Technology (oliverwyman.com).
I would love to start a conversation here and collect different thoughts on what could be added to farmOS as modules that would bring additional value. These will likely fit into a set of categories that can be set up for hackathon challenges. Just as an example, there might be a category of “Improving Data Entry” that would examine use of voice, video, remote sensors, etc. to capture and input data. Another example might be integration with other open source projects (e.g., Open Food Network, financial management, etc.).
I look forward to the conversation and learning more!
-Tim