University life can be really interesting.
You think you’re just going to go to classes and get a degree, but halfway through you end up becoming the champion of a national hackathon. Oh, and by the way, the hackathon is about farming!
Well, that’s what happened to three of our students and senior lecturer Ms Leong Ying Mei from the Faculty of Computing and Engineering‘s School of Computing, after they emerged champions of the Agro-Food Virtual Hackathon!
The Lushgreen Hackers team, led by Ms Leong, also included Diploma in Information Technology student Ng Wei Jie and Bachelor of Computer Science (Hons) students Shane Abasse and Yap Joon Lok.
This was the first time that a team from QIU has won this event.
Organised by Agro-food Productivity Nexus, the programme set out to create awareness of the importance of technology in farming, while providing an opportunity for young people to find solutions based on real industry issues.
Participants were challenged to develop a solution to the problems in irrigation or fertigation systems.
Only four universities were shortlisted for the final round of pitching—as only teams who had managed to complete the system within 3 weeks would be eligible to deliver their pitch.
“We built a prototype to solve the irrigation and fertigation issues that Cameron Highlands farmers are currently facing. Our system emphasised the agronomy aspect, using smart farming technologies like the Internet of Things (IoT).” said team leader Ms Leong.
In addition to a cash prize, our lucky winners also got the chance to test their Proofs-of-Concept (POCs) project in Cameron Highlands—one of the nation’s agricultural focal points.
“It was a challenging experience, and that truly made our victory more meaningful. The students were able to make a name for themselves by solving a real-world problem, and this is a massive achievement to put on their resumes.“
“We are incredibly grateful to our faculty and QIU, for giving us the opportunity and the support that helped us rack up this win.”
Kudos to our Lushgreen Hackers team for extending our winning tradition!
