raising agtech to the next level Technology has a huge role to play in future food production but we can only really do that if we create an open environment where everyone is pushing hard to design better, more innovative solutions regardless of who owns the IP, says Autogrow chief executive Darryn Keiller. Growing crops is no longer just about dirt and seeds - it’s about tech and data. The most successful and sustainable growers embrace technology and utilise every opportunity to understand their growing environments.” That’s the sentiment behind Auckland-based tech company Autogrow, which has launched the first indoor-agricultural SDK (software development kit), opening the door for a new revolution in the industry. Called Jelly, this first SDK will form part of a group of software Autogrow will provide publicly on the world-leading development platform Github. “Jelly is the first step in raising agtech to the next level,” Keiller says. “For us this is about building a community for a new generation of growers who love to grow and hack the tech. We are opening the door for third parties to access our technology 24 SEPTEMBER 2017 programmatically, which has never been done in our industry, and is just the beginning as we work our way towards our open source initiative.” Traditionally, agricultural providers utilise proprietary products and services which leave little flexibility for the growers to create their own solutions or connect them with existing infrastructure. Autogrow’s move, Keiller says, will provide customers access to the programmable layer of Autogrow’s Intelli product range, with other future products following suit. Autogrow’s chief technology officer Jeffrey Law is the driving force behind Jelly, and the various solutions the research and development team are currently creating. “We came up with the name Jelly as it reflects that early incubation stage where everything is flexible, you can mould it in any configuration, it comes in different variations, and of course it’s quite tasty,” Law says. “For us it’s like a play area where we get to experiment and come up with original ideas. The biggest difference here is that we are opening the door to the play room and welcoming in anyone who wants to revolutionise the agricultural industry.” Established in 1994, Autogrow provides affordable, accessible and easy-to-use innovation to growers and resellers in more than 39 countries. By leveraging the power of technology, data science and plant biology through a team of software designers, engineers and crop science experts, the company pushes innovation boundaries to gain best results. Autogrow will monitor the progress of its Jelly SDK, with availability via Github at: www.tinyurl.com/githubAutogrowSystems “
FT-sep17-eMag1
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