Tirupati engineering student wins US grant for farm-risk technology
A 19-year-old innovator from Sullurpeta has won an $8,750 Emergent Ventures grant for a platform that assesses field conditions and land risk.
A 19-year-old technology innovator from Sullurpeta in Tirupati district has been awarded a grant of $8,750 by Emergent Ventures, a fellowship programme associated with the Mercatus Centre at George Mason University in the United States.
Jakkula Jai Sai Karthik, currently in the third year of an engineering course at a private college, has been included in a group of entrepreneurs backed through the programme. His work centres on applications in agriculture and disaster mitigation.
The platform he has developed allows farmers, agricultural lenders and crop insurers to assess field conditions in under a second. It does this by analysing real-time soil moisture, thermal conditions and crop vigour.
The system is intended to help small and marginal farmers spot potential yield risks and plan planting strategies ahead of drought conditions.
Karthik plans to use the grant to develop a planetary intelligence engine that converts unstructured satellite imagery and climate signals into an instant 0-100 land score for any geographical coordinate on earth.