Team xTra Rice (holding prizes) with (from left to right) Smart community partnerships head Darwin Flores, IRRI deputy director general for communications and partnerships Bruce Tolentino, PhilRice executive director Eufemio Rasco Jr., and (rightmost) Freelancer.com country manager Jorge Azurin
Winners in the recent Bigas2 Hack software and hardware development contest were announced, with the group of computer science professors from De La Salle University, who developed a camera system for monitoring plant development in screen houses, getting the top prize.
Bigas2 Hack contest is organized by the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) and wireless services leader Smart Communications, Inc. (Smart).
De La Salle’s team Butil was declared the Best Research Optimization App under the competition’s Long-Term Challenge.
The project features stationary cameras linked to a system that can measure a plant’s greenness, density, and leaf length, eliminating the need for a human staff to measure the plant’s characteristics manually.
Receiving runner-up honors was Team Hackalyst from the Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice) who developed a web-based interface for Oryza 2000, the software IRRI uses to model potential rice yield and growth.
Participants with IRRI scientists
Participants presented their projects toward the end of the two-day Bigas2 Hack which was held at the IRRI headquarters in Los Baños, Laguna.
Under the Short-Term Challenge category, Team xTra Rice’s Rice Calculator won Best Farmer App.
The team’s Rice Calculator is an online tool that contains a variety seed selector and many calculators that will help rice farmers determine profitability, moisture loss, and milling quality, among others.
The Best Consumer App award went to Team LB Pips’ Visitors Kiosk project, which allows people to virtually visit IRRI’s Riceworld Museum.
Named Best Innovation App under the Bring-Your-Own-Idea Challenge was Weather-on-the-Go by Team GoRated, a web application that sends real-time weather changes and forecasts via SMS. Placing second was HarBest Deal by Team HarBest, a platform that seeks to establish communication and facilitate transactions among farmers, rice traders, and IRRI.
A total of 12 teams joined Bigas2 Hack, the sequel to the successful BigAs Hackathon staged by IRRI and Smart last year.
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