On October 24th and 26th, Ashesi hosted the Hack4Farming Hackathon organized by Global Development Analytics (GDA), a US based agency that partners with organizations to address information gaps crucial to food security, and subsequently develop tools for workers in agriculture. For two gruelling days, about twenty Ashesi students from a mixture of majors and year groups, worked almost non-stop in the computer labs to try to build solutions around information technology, for problems in agriculture.
“Historically, agriculture has been an African power industry and [yet] we haven’t seen technology applied to agriculture in a way that we would have expected,” said Michael Hennon of GDA. “There’s huge potential to apply a little bit of technology and get huge results.”
“A hackathon is important as it gives participants from different fields of study and expertise the chance to build things they may not ordinarily think about, in very little time.” said Dr. Nathan Amanquah, of Ashesi's Computer Science Department.
“There’s always some challenges early on when students have to adjust to the amount of work and the little time that they have to work with, “ added Michael Hennon, “it was a little overwhelming for the students at first, but seeing what they were able to accomplish over short period of time was impressive.”
In the end the winning team, made up of Dan Opoku Gyinae '16, Makafui Fie '17 and Stephan Ofosuhene '19, pitched an idea on an SMS based application that gives farmers the rain forecast for seven days and the irrigation needs for the particular crop they grow. In a brief ceremony to round up the hackathon each participant was presented with awards from GDA.
"I was slightly anxious to participate in the program due to my level of technical skills but my growing interest and passion for technology landed me there," said Benedicta Amo Bempah ’16. "We were tasked to deliver in 48 hours, work in diverse teams and learn totally new subjects. It wasn't an easy process at all but I don't regret being a part of this challenge."