Team Agri Heroes android app bags first prize at tech-driven Charcha'23 summit

HYDERABAD: An android application developed by Hyderabad-based Team Agri Heroes won Rs 5 lakh cash prize during the Google, T-Hub Hack4Change hackathon at The Nudge Institute's Charcha '23 summit organized at the Indian School of Business (ISB) in Hyderabad.

Google senior director (engineering) Guru Bhat presented a cheque of Rs 5 lakh to Team Agri Heros during a programme held at ISB Hyderabad on Thursday. Team Agri Heroes developed an android application to actively bridge the gap between agritech and academia through employing deep – tech to suggest evidence and research-backed strategies to support smallholder farmers. Their example of checking the health status of cattle won them first place.

The team was selected by a jury including Samuel Praveen Kumar, Joint Secretary (Extension, AIF, Investments and Price Support), Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare), Guru Bhat, (Senior Director, Engineering, Google), Arun Prasath Arunachalam (Principal Engineer, Google), Wing Commander Anthony Anish (COO, T-Hub), and Ravi Trivedi (Head, Transforming Agriculture for Small Farmers, The/Nudge Institute).

The/Nudge Institute’s flagship tech-enabled livelihoods summit, charcha 23, supported by Google in collaboration with T-hub brought together tech students and professionals to compete in Hack 4 Change, a 24-hour hackathon, to develop an android application that addresses the issues faced by the small and marginal farmers across India.

Over 270 plus applicants across the country applied to participate in this Rs 5 lakh winning challenge. The T-hub and Google teams selected 40 teams that would travel to participate in the hackathon at the ISB, Hyderabad campus. This hackathon was one of the largest hackathons held in Hyderabad.

“It is very encouraging to see youth and early startup professions emerge with solutions for problems that are not considered to be lucrative enough. The/Nudge is extremely thankful to Google and THub for joining hands to attract the youth’s attention towards India’s agricultural, social, and developmental challenges and enable technology to push for change,” Ravi Trivedi said.

Meanwhile, Team Infernos from Ghaziabad won Rs 2.5 lakh cash prize for their idea on solar powering the agricultural revolution by employing the use of alternate reality. Team Lightheads from Hyderabad won Rs 1 lakh for their idea of utilizing satellite imaging to help smallholder farmers to increase crop productivity and bring about yield optimization.