Key Definitions
Agroecology — “The integrative study of the ecology of the entire food systems, encompassing ecological, economic and social dimensions” (Francis et al., 2003).
Precision Agriculture — Using technology to do “the right management practice at the right place and the right time” (Mulla, 2016).
Technology Lock-In — Inefficiencies in the market that result from a past choice that lock that decision into place, preventing competition from potentially more advantageous innovation (Arthur, 1989).
Market Failure — The failure of an economic system to result in desirable outcomes (Bator, 1958).
Artificial Intelligence (AI) — The automation of “activities that we associate with…
The future of Africa is bright. The cell phone boom in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) was unpredicted and will have a great impact on the development of farming in the region. However, the needs of African farmers differ from those around the world and the digital solutions they require will be drastically different from solutions that exist today.
A Vision for a Sustainable Future
The concept of Precision Agroecology was coined eight years ago [1], but the concept has not caught on beyond that paper and the description given there is distinct from the vision I present today. While the paper discussed the possibility of using technology to improve ecological outcomes while producing food — it centered on an approach that still reflected the values and theory of traditional farming. Traditional approaches to farming in European history have approached it as an industry of inputs and outputs. …
So I’m in love with DeepArt — the whole idea of machines doing art fascinates me but I love how DeepArt.io has brought this idea to the masses along with Google and Snapchat.
We often call some of the latest photo augmentation software “filters” but it’s so much more than that. It’s using machine learning and image recognition to not just mindlessly change an input to an output, but rather learning techniques and patterns from one image and applying them to objects in another. …
As a part of my role as an At Large Representative in MSA, the student government of the University of Minnesota — we are often asked in committees to take on special projects.
In the Infrastructure Committee, we got a tip that the University was going to make several different apps just for transportation. Students were upset and didn’t want to have to download several apps just to get around campus but the university felt that there was too many features to combine into one seamless app.
I was added to the project to do two things:
- Work with other…
