Nine teams land great pitches at Agmentation 2022
Supported by experienced mentors, teams made up of researchers, producers, students and other community members, spent an intensive day devising solutions to real problems.
Nine teams landed great pitches at Agmentation 2022, and each pitch has potential to make real impact!
Agmentation is a UNE SRI flagship event, part of its program of Innovation Challenges.
“Innovation challenges combine diverse talents to develop solutions - solutions that can grow into opportunities for more innovative practices in organisations or as startups,” said Dr Lou Conway, UNE SRI Director.
“Human-centred design thinking generates rapid prototyping of ideas. This methodology was demonstrated beautifully last week at Agmentation!”
Agmentation 2022 asked teams to combine their strengths to build solutions to one of three problem statements:
· How might we identify the tools that add value to our farm businesses to increase resilience to climate variability?
· How might we design our communities differently to best prepare for climate variability?
· How might we protect biodiversity in times of climate crisis?
“This year’s theme was Climate Adaptive Agriculture. Teams solved problems that matter to agricultural producers and rural communities,” Dr Conway said.
“Regional and rural communities know the impact of climate. Agricultural production is vulnerable, but so are our small rural towns with devastating consequences for health, trade, sport, investment, education. It impacts every part of our lives.”
Nine teams, made up of high school and university students, producers, researchers, technologists and others, delivered great pitches.
The judge’s choice and the people’s choice awards, went to ‘Adaptive Agriculture’. Their solution has an exciting education focus with great potential.
This team will receive $5000 which they will use to take their idea to the next level with support from SQNNSW Innovation Hub.
Three additional teams received judges’ commendations: ‘Biocentivise’, ‘Future Generational Carbon’, and ‘Rural Sharks’.
Pitching an idea on the day can be the start, and so the UNE SRI is keen to have participants from any of the teams connect for mentoring support from UNE SRI to help them progress their ideas further.
“The depth of talent in the space, and the ideas generated during the one day ‘sprint and pitch’ were impressive. We are excited for next steps!”
Thank you to facilitators: Gary Morgan, Leecia Angus, Stephen Angus, Richard Daugherty, Sam Duncan, Bryn Griffiths, Scott Hamey, Ed Lefley, Danielle Morton, Esther Pronker, Lloyd Thomson, Will Winter, Matthew Wysel, and Lisa Yorkston.
Thank you to the judges: Prof Birgit Loch (UNE Dean of SABL), Matthew Irwin (UNE SRI Chair), Lu Hogan (SQNNSW Innovation Hub, Armidale node manager) and Todd Redwood (Deputy Mayor, Armidale Regional Council)
Agmentation is supported by regional collaborators including Armidale Regional Council, NSW Government, University of New England, InAgTech, NBN Co, the Southern Queensland and Northern NSW Innovation Hub, Food Agility CRC, the SMART Farm, the UNE SMART Region Incubator, their mentors and amazing networks of community supporters.
Images by Dave Robinson Photography