• Youthful potential from HackWknd ICAAS 2018

Meanwhile, youths of today are not left out in the race to uniquely combine technology and agriculture.

A shining example is the Internet of Things ( IoT) Based Honey Harvesting Stingless Bee Farm Monitoring System which won the fifth edition of HackWknd held in conjunction with the ICAAS, held together with Sarawak Agro Festival 2018.

Team XBeta with their IoT Based Honey Harvesting Stingless Bee Farm Monitoring System garnered the grand prize of RM1,500, followed by Team Redemption with Farming Monitoring System, and eFarmers with Solar Powered Smart Irrigation Control.

The runner-ups won RM1,000 and RM700 respectively. Team Redemption was also awarded with the People’s Choice Award for the most voted project at Sarawak Agro Festival.

Organised by Sarawak Multimedia Authority ( SMA) and supported by Malaysian Global Innovation & Creativity Centre (MaGIC), HackWknd ICAAS saw over 30 participations from universitiesandindustrycompeting for prize pool of RM6,000.

“HackWknd ICAAS aims to produce the best technological enabling solution in the agriculture sector by addressing key challenges from Ministry of Modernization of Agriculture, Native Land and Regional Development (MANRED), and in line with Sarawak Digital Economy Initiatives,” MaGIC said in a statement.

HackWknd is a community driven hackathon aiming to gather the bright mind of people in engaging addressed issue with technological enablement for creative and innovative solution.

The hackathon usually runs from 48 to 52 hours whereas the participants will develop a minimal viable product (MVP) for the given problem statements.

HackWknd ICAAS was mentored by Daniel Vong (BAWA Smart Cane) and Johnson Chong from the Department of Agriculture Sarawak, and judged by Mohd Azhar Rashid (ILoveMedia), Tan Chee Kan (SMA) and Nigel Sim (Chumbaka). The hackathon ran from October 19 to 21, 2018 at MaGIC Sarawak Co-working Space as the satellite venue.