2024 Research Park AgTech Hackathon

Thank you to everyone who participated in the 2024 Research Park AgTech Hackathon on Saturday, March 2, and Sunday, March 3, 2024. View pictures from the event on this media gallery.

This two-day hackathon is a team competition open to any University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign students interested in Agriculture/AgTech. This is an exciting and fast-paced event where teams can create together. New and experienced students are welcome to participate in this free event. 

John Deere Prompt:

John Deere Operations Center is an online farm management system that enables access to farm information anywhere, anytime through web, tablet, or phone. Operations Center enables you to manage your operation more efficiently, do a better job on every pass, reduce costs, and improve profitability. Teams are tasked with pitching a new feature or re-designing an existing feature for the John Deere Operations Center Mobile App.

Bayer Prompt:

Bayer Breeding operations requires the assessment of complex phenotypes of potential new maize products brought to the market. This evaluation is complicated by the fact that as biological systems being grown under environments where we have limited control, valuable decisions must be made with incomplete and imperfect information. Join us in playing a role as a plant breeder evaluating plants during their first screening year, and help create an evaluation system that will help us predict which plants will do best in which environments before they are even planted.

Team Formation

Teams are comprised of 5  individuals. Teams may only consist of University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign students. Individual registration are available for this event with the option to request teammates. Registrants will be assigned to teams the morning of the Hackathon.

Recommended Skillsets

The prompt is designed such that individuals from all backgrounds can meaningfully contribute to a team. However, for this year’s prompt, teams will especially benefit from the following skills:

• Programming
• Creativity
• Multimedia Communications
• Project Management
• Industry Knowledge

Schedule

Saturday, March 2

8:30 am | Breakfast and Networking

9:00 am | Welcome & Kick-Off

9:30 am | Prompt and Setup

10:00 am | Hackathon Begins

12:00 pm | Lunch

5:30 pm | Dinner

8:00 pm | Participants Exit Building

Sunday March 3

8:30 am | Breakfast and Networking

10:00 am | Submissions Due

12:00 pm | Lunch

1:00 pm | Winners Announced

Winners

Prizes were awarded to the top teams in each track.

The winning team was invited to present their pitch at the AgTech Summit on Tuesday, March 5, 2024. 

Support

Thank you to our sponsors Bayer and John Deere and to the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences at the University of Illinois for supporting this event.