The winners’ awarding meeting of the startup competition of “AgroHackathon 2020” was held

On March 2, the final presentation of “AgroHackathon 2020” startup competition was held in Baku with the support of the Ministry of Agriculture, organization of Agrarian Science and Innovation Center, “Eazi Start” Startup and Innovation Center of Azerbaijan State Oil and Industry University, Azerbaijan Industrial Corporation, sponsored by “Bakcell”.

The representatives of the apparatus of the Ministry of Agriculture, the State Agency for Public Service and Social Innovations under the president of the Republic of Azerbaijan, heads of the state agencies, rectors of the universites, representatives of subordinate agencies of the Ministry, head of the Azerbaijani Office of “Microsoft”, as well as head of the Azerbaijani Office of the World Bank were attended in the meeting.

Before the presentation, a film about the “AgroHackathon 2020” competition was shown. Opening the meeting, Akbar Abbasov, deputy director of the Agrarian Science and Innovation Center gave information about the purpose and importance of the competition. He noted that this competition will be created favorable conditions for the realization of innovative ideas of agricultural start-ups in agriculture.

Speaking at the event, Jeyhun Salmanov, deputy chairman of the State Agency for Public Service and Social Innovations under the president of the Republic of Azerbaijan spoke about the activities carried out by the “INNOLAND”  Incubation and Acceleration Center, as well as support mechanisms for start-ups. He invited start-ups to work on long-term projects. He noted that “INNOLAND”  Incubation and Acceleration Center will provide continuous support to start-up projects.

Speaking at the meeting, Inam Karimov, Minister of Agriculture said that the development of the agricultural sector was declared as a priority by Mr. Ilham Aliyev, the president of the Republic of Azerbaijan. The Minister noted that as a result of implementation events, the agricultural sector has entered a new stage and pace of development in this field continues: “The agricultural reforms carried out by Mr. President mean further development of agriculture and for this purpose, the state implements large support measures. As a result of the implemented state support, the agricultural sector has been constantly developing in the last few years. It is no coincidence that last year alone, the total volume of agricultural production increased by more than 7 per cent compared to the previous year”.

Noting that important measures have been taken to implement innovative solutions in all fields, the Minister noted that on the new age background, this direction has become one of the priorities of the state policy: “The basis of development in the agricultural sector is the application of innovations. The main task facing with us is to ensure efficient use of land and water resources and protection of the environment. At the same time, our main goals are to increase farmers' incomes and reduce their costs. It is necessary to apply innovative solutions, innovative methods and modern technologies in the agricultural sector arising from these needs. The agricultural sector is one of the most suitable and demanding fields for the application of innovations, electronic solutions and programs. Today, agriculture has become one of the spheres in which IT technologies are widely used. The introduction of drones, the creation of E-agricultural Information System that makes agricultural services more accessible to farmers, ensuring the prompt and transparent issuance of subsidies, the use of platforms that allow collecting agrodates are only part of them. The Ministry of Agriculture always supports the application of innovations in the agricultural sector, and this approach has become one of our principles of activity. The involvement of young people in the agricultural sector is one of the global challenges. I hope that “AgroHackathon 2020”  will further increase the interest of young people in the agricultural sector. The competition and the results show that our young people have great potential in this field. They will contribute to the development of agriculture in the country by investing their knowledge and skills in the creation of mobile applications for the agricultural sector, programming processes”.

Minister Inam Karimov congratulated the winners of the competition and wished success to all participants of the project.

Mustafa Babanli, rector of Azerbaijan State Oil and Industry University, Kamran Nabizade, general director of “Azerbaijan Industrial Corporation” OJSC shared their views on the importance of the competition and called on young people to take active part in start-up competitions.

“Mathemates” team of the Baku branch of Moscow State University named M.V. Lomonosov won the first place, the “Origen” team of Azerbaijan State Oil and Industry University took the second place, and the SPD team of ADA University took the third place. At the initiative of the Scientific Research Institute of Vegetable Growing, a new tomato variety grown by the Institute was named "AzTU-2020" in honor of the team of the Azerbaijan Technical University, which excelled in the competition.

It should be mentioned that more than 50 teams from the leading universites of the country applied for the participation of the competition. 15 teams representing 11 different higher schools of them gained the right to participate in the final stage of the competition. The total number of successful teams from the initial selection stage is 70, and the number of female participants in the teams is more than 20. During the competition, the Research Institute of Vegetable Growing allocated special places for teams and their fans, they were provided with ecologically clean food and juices. 15 teams have written a program for irrigation systems of greenhouses for 2020 minutes at the competition, which started since February 29. The competition ended today at 6:00 pm. The competition participants successfully coped with the technical task assigned to them and developed a program for the irrigation systems of greenhouses, writing the code to be considered a record in the country within 2020 minutes.

It should be noted that this competition is the first in the world in terms of the place it is organized and the uniqueness of the problem posed. The technical solutions found within the framework of the “AgroHackathon-2020” competition are intended to be used in the management of modern greenhouses.