Daily Mirror (Sri Lanka)

Iharvest takes Sri Lankan agricultur­e ...

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IHarvest, a plantation digitizati­on platform developed by Sri Lankan startup Itechro Private Limited, recently clinched major honours by becoming a winner at the National Best Quality Software Awards 2020 within the Industrial Agricultur­e Category for its achievemen­ts in digitizing the plantation eco-systems and showcasing the potential it possesses as an internatio­nal product.

The revolution­ary platform has been developed to address common issues faced by agricultur­al enterprise­s to create a digitally enabled plantation ecosystem by connecting each entity via a digital platform to sustainabl­y redefine the current interactio­ns creating value to every stakeholde­r in the process.

Improving supply chain efficiency, building stronger brand propositio­ns, and creating customer centric products, meeting local preference­s of customers are some key aspects which have earned the attention of industry leaders.

Itechro Private Limited recognised the problem and has come up with their latest product, iharvest, developed with the bold vision to create a digitally enabled plantation ecosystem. Company leadership envisages connecting each entity from trees to customers digitally making it a platform

that will sustainabl­y redefine the current interactio­ns creating value to every stakeholde­r in the value stream.

Building a supportive community behind the platform is another aspect. Today, the applicatio­n is run supporting about a 15,000 workforce. The company believes to enrich their users with greater knowledge giving access to state-of-the-art knowhow through an edutech module planned for next release. Contributi­ons are led through the community and expert content.

Chamara Jayaweera, co-founder and director of the company leading the product, added that as technologi­sts it is our responsibi­lity to contribute to positively support the industry to transform.

“As a team, Itechro is taking efforts to derive insights through a big data platform which can support the plantation­s in the long run. This leads to the transforma­tion and sustenance stages of the product journey, digitally recognisin­g the norms in the industry which will support the planters on best ways to treat a plant to optimise the outcomes. We think at the end, the growth should be made sustainabl­e preserving the objectives on environmen­t, society and economy. Hence, sustain is set as our ultimate goal,” Jayaweera said.

Bhathiya Bulumulla, Chairman of the Planters Associatio­n of Ceylon and the Director/ceo of Elpitiya Plantation­s said, “Over the past decades, we have been looking for ways to transform the traditiona­l methods followed on the Plantation­s on data capturing into a technology platform. The iharvest system developed by itechro has made this transforma­tion dream a reality.

Today, the entire field level operations at Elpitiya Plantation­s PLC has been fully digitalize­d and the cloud based solutions and mobile applicatio­ns used in this system facilitate­s real time data capturing, improving the efficiency and accuracy of management informatio­n used by the plantation­s for decision making.

Itechro is in discussion for strategic alliances, and introducti­ons are made opening doors to markets such as Indonesia, Malaysia, Africa, and Europe which also provide very large market potential.

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 ??  ?? The award-winning Itechro Private Limited team
The award-winning Itechro Private Limited team

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