35 Years of Growing Opportunities - The East - West Seed Innovation Olympics 2017

September 29, 2017 -- The East-West Seed Innovation Olympics 2017 was held in University of the Philippines in Los Banos, Laguna, where 10 Finalists compete with each others ideas of making small farm holders benefit more of what are impossible can be of reality.

Taking my special moment here before the awarding started. 

Who started this Olympics?

It was in 1982 when East-West Seed introduced market-oriented plant breeding in Southeast Asia where their main goal and mission is to improve and uplift the income of the farmers through high quality vegetable seed for the smallholder farmers, who are the 85% of the world's food production comes from. As of now, East - West Seed is one of the 10 largest seed companies in the world with over 5, 300 employees in 15 R7D establishments and 10 seed processing facilities in 7 countries who trained 46, 782 smallholder farmers for more productive and sustainable farming techniques. 

What is the Innovation Olympics 2017?

This is the most incredible olympics I ever witnesses so far in my life as a student. It challenged the youth of today to think of possibilities in the impossible ones. For their 35 years of service to mankind, they came up  this kind of theme of "New Technologies to Improve the Productivity of Vegetable Farmers". With the up rising real-world problems of the local farmers, this challenged the students to come up with REAL innovative  technology solutions.

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This was a 4 days Innovation Olympics started with a symposium on the first day. The second and the third day were spent in boot camp sessions and the fourth day was spent for presenting and awarding. There were 13 groups who competed, 10 were chosen for the finals and 3 were chosen as winners with the outstanding P150,000, which they will use for making those brilliant ideas come life with the allotted time of 3  months.

During the last day of the Olympics,  2 teams were unable to come and they were team  Aton Umahan ( Ateneo de Manila University)  due to classes and semester’s end and for team Vegetrack (UPLB) due to school and working students conflicts at the RILB . Only 8 teams presented their ideas for the elevation round and these were the following.

 Agrissive (UPLB). This is an organically made agrochemical solution that can be both pesticide and fertilizer in one which is a very convenient tool for ensuring the quality and safe consumption of the produce.

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Agriviz (AIM).Incorporating data analysis and dissemination with agricultural e-commerce platform of information to improve the product and the profit of the farmers.

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i-Agri Ventures (UPLB).   KAMATIS - Kagamitang Makabago, Teknilohiyang at Impormasyong Sigurado .This idea focuses in tomato farming which involves monitoring soil moisture to avoid the effects of insufficient or excessive water in tomatoes in affordable, effective, and sustainable means.

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Laguna Sangre, (UPLB).  Graco Gulayman is a project where the utilization of the land will be optimized through cropping system technologies in crop intensification and diversification.

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Light AgriTech (UPLB) This Smart Solar-Powered Irrigation System is an introduction in aiming to save water and improve crop production through automatic irrigation.

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Project Minerva (UPLB) With the use of several existing artificial intelligence, microcontrollers and sensors for automatic aquaponic system, this will lighten the farmers to-do-lists as the system runs by itself. 

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Team Oppa(UPLB) a simple technology that utilizes different sensor and data  to inform not only the farmers but also the consumers about his vegetables through SMS or text messaging.

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Tinderow (UPLB). This is a convenient and efficient online platform between the buyers and the farmers minus the middlemen.

The criteria for the evaluating teams were as follows:

1. Entrepreneurial Approach. How clear are the results of the demonstrations of the team's efforts? Do they create greater opportunities for sustainable source of income and livelihood for the farmer community?
2. Business Innovation. Can the team's demonstration of collective creativity and innovation in identifying  technology-driven solutions be implemented, turned over and sustained by the local farmer community?
3. Improving Farmers' Quality of Life. Can the project proposal's potential  improve the non-material aspects of the farmer or target group of farmers?
4. Improving Farmers' Standard of Living. Can this project proposal's potential improve the material aspects

The 6 judges of the competition came from different races with common goals that made them as one and they were:

Simon Jan de Hoop. Vice President of the East-West Seed Group.

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Juan Santos. Member, Board of Advisors and Supervisory Board of East-West Seed.

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Anne Isabelle Sam. Chief People Officer of East-West Seed Group.

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Mary Ann Sayoc. Public Affairs Lead of East-West Seed Group.

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Maaike Groot. Public Affairs Manager of East - West Seed Group.

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Henk Hermans. General Manager of East-West Seed Philippines.

The judges picked the top 5 out of 8 presenters and they were

1. i-Agriventures
2. Agriviz
3. Light Agriteach
4. Team Oppa
5. Agrissive

The newest unfreezer in town!

The whole day was filled with so much of learning and thinking on how these impossible things can be made possible. All teams met the criteria for judging but only three made it to the top as they move forward in making their proposals come to life taking home P 150, 000 each which they will be using for their proposal within 3 months before the real final round comes. They are:

1. Team Oppa
2. Agriviz 
3. i-Agriventures

The 3 Finalists that I am looking forward to see after 3 months.. for the final round.

Whenever we pass by the Los Banos, Laguna area, my mom would always have this story of how awesome it is to see for myself the International Rice Research Institute... that I should consider having my study in UPLB taking up a degree that has something to do with agriculture perhaps which is to aim not only in helping myself but also of the others by helping them in helping me as I aim to elevate the kind of farming we have in our country. This never came to my mind until I had this opportunity to witness such Innovation Olympic came. I told her I want to study in here... She said that she would love to see me on that same stage in years to come. Someday I will be one of them too... but as of now I will be now counting the days til I see the final day of who will be picked as the winner of East-West Seed Innovation Olympic 2017...  I can't wait to see these future leaders, farmers and businessmen of our country be in service to our farmers.

A Photo Opt of everyone who participated in this event together with the judges and the guests.

--Justin